Understanding Government

Chicago Tribune architectural critic Blair Kamin gushes about stimulus money that has gone to make federal buildings more energy efficient. (more…)

The long discussed plan to build “FutureGen,” — a “clean coal” power plant outside of Mattoon, Illinois — is dead. According to Katherine Skiba of the Chicago Tribune. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin says that FutureGen (the name refers to the alliance of energy companies that were supposed to build the plant) will still get $1 billion in Dept. of Energy stimulus money. However, the money will go (more…)

Federal diligence is stalling important renewable energy projects in California, and state officials say the delays may jeopardize construction of several next-generation green power plants, Marc Lifsher of the Los Angeles Times reports.

Construction of a dozen wind farms, solar panel complexes and seven different plants that would use a massive array of mirrors to capture (more…)

Although the energy sector was doing more whining than gloating, until late last month there was much for the industry to celebrate. Even with Democrats pulling the levers of power, officials are still eagerly shoveling funds into ‘clean’ coal research, and nuclear power continues to gain converts among enviros and has even earned the President’s embrace. Even California was ready to reopen its waters to offshore drilling.

The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon has prompted a sea change. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger quickly declared (more…)

As Ian Talley and Stephen Power report in the Wall Street Journal, the Energy Department has expended only 7% of stimulus funds the Department received in 2008 — funds that are supposed to go to job creation and innovative energy projects.  The tension at Energy is between vetting proposals carefully and getting money out the door quickly.  Officials want to avoid even the appearance of waste or haste in the selection process, something the Obama administration takes seriously.  But jobs are not being created even as other major programs at the DOE are also experiencing a slow rollout.  What’s the problem?

Talley and Power sum it up as follows:  “department offices were still too short-staffed and under-trained to handle such a massive increase in funding authority.”

Congress usually hates to fund new government hires, but in this case it’s understandable that more hands are needed.  Spending billions of dollars effectively isn’t easy.  So for future projects of this kind, Congress should include funding for temporary, project-related hires and training programs.  If they had set aside even a small portion of the billions in funding for temporary hires, contracts, and training, we’d have more funding going to clean energy projects and more people employed.