5 Billion in Stimulus Spent on Air Conditioning in Sun Belt
5 Billion in Stimulus Spent on Air Conditioning in Sun Belt
With energy bills rising, the US government is stepping up its weatherizing efforts. Weatherizing is defined as "the practice of protecting a building and its interior from the elements, particularly from sunlight, precipitation, and wind, and of modifying a building to reduce energy consumption and optimize energy efficiency." The country has a well-defined Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) which started way back in 1976 and aims to enable "low-income families to permanently reduce their energy bills by making their homes more energy efficient." Last year, the government decided to pump in a massive $5 billion in stimulus money into the program, whose last annual budget earlier was $447 million. This move has attracted both supporters and detractors.
It is undeniable that WAP has managed to substantially reduce domestic energy bills. As per the official website, "The energy conservation resulting from these efforts of state and local agencies helps our country reduce its dependence on foreign oil and decrease the cost of energy for families in need while improving the health and safety of their homes. During the past 33 years, WAP has provided weatherization services to more than 6.4 million low-income households. Families receiving weatherization services see their annual energy bills reduced by an average of about $437, depending on fuel prices."
Moreover, this cash injection was expected to create a large number of jobs at a time when unemployment levels are high. The National Community Action Foundation, a group that advocates for low-income families, estimated that 46,000 jobs will be created. Amongst the supporters of this move was Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), who described it as "an investment that provides both short-term job benefits and long-term energy dividends." The stimulus legislation "will go a long way" to meeting President Obama's goal of weatherizing 1 million homes a year, the Alliance to Save Energy said, with the advocacy body's vice president Joe Loper estimating that the money would help weatherize more than 1 million homes in 2009 and 2010. That was a year back.
Unfortunately, recent numbers show that the stimulus has created far fewer construction jobs than expected. As of March 2010, the program has yet to produce a single job or retrofit one home in Alaska, Wyoming and the District of Columbia. And in California, a state with nearly 37 million residents, the program at last count had created 84 jobs. Associate Press, in a review, has blamed archaic government rules that dictate how to run the project, including how much to pay contractors and how to protect historic homes during renovations, for the slow progress. As per the latest figures, the stimulus program has retrofitted 30,250 homes - about 5 percent of the overall goal - and fallen well short of the 87,000 jobs that the department planned to create.
A lot of the criticism of the program has been aimed at the increased focus on air conditioning instead of heating. A large share of the money is being spent not on keeping cold air out but on keeping cold air in. As a result of a political compromise with Sun Belt lawmakers last decade, the enormous expansion of the weatherization program invokes a rarely used formula to devote 31 percent of the money, nearly double the old share of 16 percent, to help states in hot climates, like Florida, save on air-conditioning. Critics point that since heating accounts for twice the energy consumption and pollution as cooling, the program is focusing on the less important problem.
Some watchdog groups opine that until the government releases comprehensive figures on the success or failure of last year's stimulus, further investments in the HomeStar program, currently being debated in Congress, should not be made. "The government should have stayed out of the weatherizing business in the first place," said Leslie Paige of Washington-based Citizens Against Government Waste. "This is a way to rapidly expand and entrench an existing program without ever going back and looking at the rationale or intent or effectiveness."
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