To a packed hearing room, their star witness rattled off his business insights with the fluidity of a green Gordon Gekko. He flew through explanations about Solyndra’s “B+ bond rating” and “temporary liquidity problem,” but also its “cash flow” situation and ability to get its “fab constructed on time, on budget.” He explained that in his experience with start-up companies, there tended to be a “business plan” that required a “cash burn rate” so as to “build up sales.”

He dipped into loan “subordination,” touched on “contractual agreement,” remarked on “equity investors.” He warned about what happens when the “bottom of a market falls out” and prices “plummet” because of “softening of the market in Europe.” Along the way he parried queries about due diligence, fiduciary duties, credit subsidies, probabilities of default, board seats and commodity prices.

Who was this investing genius? Why, just who you’d expect: Steven Chu, aka Secretary of Energy, aka President Obama’s CEO, chairman and entire board of America’s energy industry.

Mr. Chu came to Congress to get grilled on the circumstances that led to $535 million in taxpayer money getting thrown down (to use a high-concept business term) a rat hole. Republicans were particularly interested in plumbing whether undue political influence played a role in the later terms of this loan to Solyndra, whose investors include an Obama donor.

But perhaps the greater merit of the testimony was to provide Americans the clearest view yet of the Obama philosophy of government in action. To watch Mr. Chu was to glimpse a day in the life of a political appointee destined for so much more than dusty energy policy. Boring! In Obamaland, department secretaries run the economy, baby! They swim in a pile of balance sheets—creating, funding and managing America’s future, one company at a time. As Gordon might say, Mr. Chu “makes the rules, pal!”

If the committee members had hearts, they might have had sympathy. After all, it isn’t easy going from 30-odd years as a nuclear physicist to the job of world’s largest green investor. Mr. Chu used his opening testimony to remind the committee that his department is backing, with billions, no fewer than 38 stupendously large renewable projects (which are in addition to the 5,000 awards, totaling $34 billion, it has made via its stimulus grant program, and dozens of other corporate handouts via its regular budget).

Those projects all require monitoring, financial updates, the constant assessing of market conditions. Who has time for nuclear safety or waste disposal or basic research? Mr. Chu noted that he’d had to hire a McKinsey consultant merely to “manage this huge portfolio.” His job, understand, was to spend Mr. Obama’s tens of billions in green energy dollars “wisely, but also quickly.”

The hearing was peppered with references to the outside law firms and consultants now on the government payroll, toiling to facilitate all the deal-making. Mr. Chu said he’d hired Wall Street firm Lazard (cost: $1 million) just to analyze the refinancing options for Solyndra. The Department of Energy’s grant spreadsheet references tens of millions of dollars more that have flowed to professional firms for “department administration” and “management and oversight.” You know, it takes money to make money. Or rather, to lose it.

On that point, it’s true two of the department’s first three loans have gone pop (Solyndra and Beacon), but Mr. Chu hastened to remind everyone that this is a “risky” business. He also sought to reassure that his department was increasing oversight. Why, he’d only recently “recruited” a new guy from the National Academy of Engineering (where else?) who “understands the business very well.”

What happened with Solyndra was “unfortunate,” and also “regrettable,” acknowledged the government CEO. But really, who could blame Energy for betting the taxpayer bank on Solyndra, when it was also backed by a lot of “savvy investors”? He’s got a point there. Those investors were so savvy, they talked the Buffetts at the Energy Department into restructuring the loan so that they’d get paid back before the government.

Midway through the hearing, Texas Republican Michael Burgess dared to point out that the secretary of energy wasn’t really supposed to be a venture capitalist, that there was something profoundly concerning about government taking huge risks in private companies, and doing it with other people’s money. Did Mr. Chu understand people were “uncomfortable” with the “concept”?

The secretary/CEO never answered that question. He did, however, allude to the fact that it wasn’t he who created the loan program he’s now administering.

It was Congress. But that’s another one for the investing history books.

Write to kim@wsj.com