Energy Saving News
US Energy Efficiency Money Still to be Spent
A US government audit released on Friday reveled that most of a pot of money authorised for an energy efficiency program in last year's stimulus plan has remained untouched.
The Energy Department's inspector general’s report reported that only 8.4 percent of $3.2 billion planned to help state and local governments become more energy efficient had been claimed.
Gregory H. Friedman, the Inspector General, said that the Energy Department didn't have the resources last year to get the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program going, with initially only two people assigned to the task.
The program was designed so that states, territories, local governments and Indian tribes would be able to improve their energy efficiency and reducing green house gas emissions, through projects such as retrofitting buildings.
Up to this month grant recipients had spent just $269.7 million for energy efficiency projects. The beneficiaries of the grants reported that up until the second quarter of this year the grant money had created or saved 2,265 jobs, working out to be about one job per grant award.
The report revels that eight of the top 10 recipients of grants had each spent less than 2.3 percent of their grants. New York City, who had received the largest grant so far, more than $80 million, spent just 1.9 percent, while Chicago spent just 0.1 percent of the nearly $28 million they were granted.
According to the report, department officials argued that despite ongoing projects totaling $1.26 billion these will not be reflected as money spent until projects are completed.
Friedman stated that money spent was the best way to measure the program's progress. "Even though funding has been obligated by grantees, it may be months before the actual effect is felt in the economy,"
The Energy Department spokesman Stephanie Mueller revealed in an e-mail that the program had picked up steam in recent months, with more than 4,000 projects now under way.
Monday 16th August 2010
