Have Obama's federal government weatherize your home for only $57,362 each

[alienlovechild 75]

Who could forget the $5 billion in Obama administration stimulus money that was going to rapidly create nearly 90,000 green jobs across the country in these tough economic times and make so many thousands of homes all snuggy and warm and energy-efficient these very snowy days?

Well, a new report due out this morning will show the $5-billion program is so riddled with drafts that so far it's weatherized only about 9,000 homes.

Based on the initial Obama-Biden program promise that it would create 87,000 new jobs its first year, that would be about 10 jobs for each home weatherized so far. Makes for pretty crowded doorways.

ABC News reports that the General Accountability Office will declare today that the Energy Department has fallen woefully behind -- about 98.5% behind -- the 593,000 homes it initially predicted would be weatherized in the Recovery Act's very first, very chilly year.

The Energy Department is run by Steven Chu, like President Obama a Nobel Prize winner. You'll never guess what the federal government blames for the lack of significant progress.

Not duct tape. Not weatherstripping. But that infamous RED tape. In the form of, well, forms.

It seems that the Pelosi-Reid stimulus plan that was so quickly cobbled together and was supposed to immediately pump so much money into the sagging economy last year included an 80-year-old legal provision requiring all federally funded projects to pay a prevailing wage to workers.

But what's a prevailing wage for weatherization, you ask?

Who knows?

So the Energy Department asked the Labor Department, which set out to calculate what a prevailing weatherization wage is in every single one of the more than 3,000 counties across these United States.

There were some other things to figure out. It seems the law also requires some kind of National Trust for Historic Preservation review for most homes before any contracts could be estimated to be negotiated to be signed to be let to be begun. And states like Michigan have two people assigned to such tasks.

So, good luck speeding up that work.

The Energy folks did tell ABC they've so far spent $522 million Recovery Act dollars on the program. Which works out to, let's see, about $57,362 worth of very expensive weatherstripping for each home fixed up so far.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington...herization.html

[Ban Hammer 14,640]

in some places, one could build a home for 57k.

[I'm Gone 60]

'Poster Child' for Obama hypocrisy on green jobs?

By: Mark Tapscott

Editorial Page Editor

01/15/10 7:43 AM EST

In a city full of conflicts of interest, this one ranks near the top of the "Most Blatant Ever." Robin Roy is a senior executive of Serious Materials, a California-based windows maker that was virtually unknown within its industry until last year when President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden began praising it as, in the latter's words, the "poster child of green industry."

Actually, Serious Materials is at the center of a grubby new conflicts of interest scandal in the White House because Assistant Secretary of Energy Cathy Zoi, Roy's wife, just happens to be the Obama appointee in charge of the government's crash weatherization program.

The Freedom Foundation of Minnesota and its investigative reporter Tom Steward has been looking into the Zoi-Roy connection for several months. Here's what they found:

"Last year Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA or the so-called Stimulus Bill). The U.S. Department of Energy’s office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) received $16.8 billion of those ARRA funds to be used to promote green energy and conservation programs including the popular $1,500 tax credit for homeowners who install energy-efficient windows. The Assistant Secretary of Energy, Cathy Zoi, is responsible for oversight in disbursing these stimulus funds.

"Ms. Zoi is married to Robin Roy, a top executive at Serious Materials, a privately held manufacturer of 'sustainable green building materials' located in California. On the Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure submitted by Ms. Zoi to the White House Ethics office as part of her confirmation, Ms. Zoi disclosed ownership with her spouse of 120,000 vested and unvested stock options in Serious Materials, a company her office regulates and that she may profit from."

In other words, Zoi complied with the letter of the law by disclosing her interest in her husband's employer. But has she observed the spirit of the government's ethics laws, which are intended to prevent conflicts of interest, real and apparent? Well, the White House has specifically praised Serious Materials in an official news release, and the company chairman has participated in a 22-minute news conference with Obama. The company is also the recipient of a special tax break and the government has ordered so much of its products that the firm can't keep up with demand.