By Karina Rusk

SAN LEANDRO, CA (KGO) — This week it will be 200 days since President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a massive federal program to create jobs by infusing cash into local communities. Some of that stimulus money is being used to clean up an environmental hazard in the Bay Area. >> Read the full story

U.S. homeowners can enjoy the “triple crown” of energy efficiency — lower home energy bills, lower federal income taxes, and increased home comfort — by making energy efficiency home improvements that qualify for up to $1,500 in federal income tax credits.

“The ARRA tax credits are very similar to those that were in effect a few years ago and renewed for 2009 only in the Troubled Asset Relief Program last fall,” Steve Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), said in a statement.

Information on the credits is available from the Tax Incentives Assistance Project (TIAP), which sponsored by a coalition of public interest nonprofit groups, government agencies, and other organizations in the energy-efficiency field. The project is designed to give consumers and businesses information they need to make use of the federal income tax incentives for energy-efficient products and technologies passed by Congress as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and amended by subsequent legislation.

Some of the important details on the home improvement tax credits include:

• For each type of qualifying equipment, the credit is for 30 percent of the cost up to $1,500.
• It is a one-time tax credit that can be claimed in part or in whole for tax year 2009 and/or tax year 2010.
• Homeowners who claimed the $500 credit available in 2006-7 can claim the remaining $1,000 credit for additional products bought and installed in 2009 and/or 2010.
• There are two basic categories of qualifying equipment — “building envelope” products and heating and cooling equipment.
• Building envelope products are replacement windows (including storm windows, storm doors, and skylights), certain ENERGY STAR asphalt and metal roofs, insulation, and other sealing products.
• Heating and cooling equipment includes furnaces, boilers, ground source or geothermal heat pumps, gas or propane water heaters, central air conditioning systems (but not window air conditioner units), and biomass stoves.
• Installation costs are not covered for building envelope products.
• Installation costs are covered for heating and cooling equipment.
• For some products, the qualifying criteria are more stringent than they were in 2006 and 2007 and in early 2009 under TARP. For example, all ENERGY STAR windows no longer qualify; now they must meet additional energy efficiency criteria (spelled out on the TIAP web site.)
• Specific efficiency criteria also apply to heating and cooling equipment.
• Under TARP, the 2006-7 criteria for qualifying products were in effect from January 1, 2009 through February 17, 2009, when the ARRA was signed.
• The TARP criteria, however, apply to exterior windows and skylights purchased and put into service before June 1, 2009.
• Homeowners who purchased and put into service equipment under the TARP criteria between January 1 and February 17, 2009, can claim the higher ($1,500) tax credit amount.

Last week, the Obama Administration announced a new youth-jobs program designed to simultaneously boost the country’s economy and ecology: a promising, if labyrinthine, new agency called the Office of Youth in Natural Resources (OYNR), which falls under the Department of the Interior. The OYNR debuts with a program, the 21st Century Youth Conservation Corps, patterned after the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930’s (but not expected to create the 3 million jobs CCC did).

The timing couldn’t be better. The White House has been increasingly criticized for the slowness with which ‘Stimulus Act’ money has resulted in actual shovel-ready jobs. Putting kids to work is a great way to counter the criticism.

According to DOI spokeswoman Joan Moody, “the 21st Youth Conservation Corps will be the signature program for the Office of Youth in Natural Resources, which will also coordinate a number of existing programs. This summer, under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (stimulus funds), 5,000 additional jobs for youth are in the process of being added to the 10,000 existing youth jobs.”

The country’s ‘youth’ is defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as between the ages of 16 and 24. However, Moody said the agency and its star pupil, the 21st Century Youth Conservation Corps (let’s call it 21CYCC), have not yet decided what ages will be eligible for the jobs.

Moody said the new OYNR is also hiring a director and several career staff positions (listed on USA Jobs), and these staffers will help to shape the nature of the youth corps as it evolves. The overall plan is for the corps to put approximately 70,000 to 100,000 young people to work each year on public lands. These are ultimately funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009.

“The reason we call the jobs ‘green’ is that they will involve performing conservation and rehabilitation work in national parks, wildlife refuges, public lands, on Indian reservations and in other ‘green’ areas.  Many of the projects on which the 5,000 new jobs will be, include trail building and maintenance, other deferred maintenance projects and assisting in habitat restoration and other land and wildlife conservation programs of the department.

“As just one small example, ten high school and college students have been hired by the U.S. Geological Survey (a DOI bureau) at The Bird Banding Laboratory of Patuxent Wildlife Refuge in Maryland,” Moody told GreenRightNow. “The lab has been the main storehouse of scientific data on the banding and subsequent encounters (recoveries) of birds for all of North America for over 100 years.  The students will be working on getting 700 boxes of older data ready for scanning so they will be available for digital access. These data on migration and other matters are quite important for conservation and regulation purposes.”

Last summer, youth unemployment was up to 13.5 percent, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said last week during the OYNR announcement – the highest rate for July since 1992. But, he said, “jobs are not the only reason for such a program. …When President Franklin Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression, he said, ‘More important than material gains will be the moral and spiritual value of such work.’”

Another element of the OYNR -besides coordinating youth programs across agency lines – is encouraging girls and women to get involved in careers that traditionally have lured boys and men by a substantial margin. Thus the White House Council on Women and Girls is also closely involved, the Council’s chair, Valerie Jarrett, said last week.

Though all federal agencies, departments and bureaus are working together to come up with jobs -beginning now – each will have its particular slant. For instance, the Bureau of Indian Affairs will “be engaging youth through their workforce training programs where participants will receive job skills in the construction trades,” Moody explained.

“The Bureau of Reclamation will engage youth on some of their infrastructure reliability and safety projects, primarily in the  areas of retrofitting of existing facilities to provide ADA accessibility and maintenance activities,” she said.  “The Bureau of Land Management, National Parks Service, Fisheries and Wildlife Service and others are engaging youth in trails maintenance – whether the trails be on the Appalachian Trail or in the middle of Boston Harbor – habitat restoration and deferred maintenance projects. The United States Geological Survey will use interns to assist in their volcano monitoring, earthquake monitoring and data preservation activities.”

In addition, 107 national parks are adding Stimulus-Act related jobs over the coming months. For more information, check out the DOI Recovery Site.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Massachusetts has been pledged $25 million in federal stimulus money to move ahead on the state’s Wind Technology Testing Center, according to an announcement today by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.

The infusion of cash is expected to create hundreds of new jobs in the Charlestown area, the site of the planned testing center, which will test commercial wind turbine blades to try to reduce their cost, improve efficiency and get the next generation of blades to market quickly. The Autoport facility will be able to study the longest wind turbine blades, a capability currently only available in Europe.

The money is in keeping with Obama’s plan to make sure the U.S. leads the world in capturing clean energy jobs, said Secretary Chu, on site for the announcement.

“As the world moves toward a significant expansion in wind power, the test blade facility will help make sure that the best, most efficient wind turbines are built right here in America,” Chu said. “Not only will it create jobs and help us achieve energy independence, it will mean cleaner air, cleaner water, and fewer greenhouse gas emissions.”

Governor Patrick expressed his pleasure that Massachusetts would be at the center of wind development, noting that: “Testing the next generation of wind turbines here will make Massachusetts a hub for the fastest-growing energy source in the world.”

Massachusetts was chosen as the site for the facility in June 2007, when the Department of Energy pledged $2 million for the project. The Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust has committed $13.2 million in grants and loans for design and development expenses.

The money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act puts the project on a pace in which construction can begin in September and be completed by 2010. Four Massachusetts companies and the University of Massachusetts also received seed money to address specific challenges facing the industry. The university, for instance, will get $252,687 to develop courses pertaining to offshore wind development.

(Photo credit: U.S. Department of Energy)

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Monday that government stimulus money will help fund 129 projects in the Southwest region, bringing new buildings, energy efficiency improvements and habitat restoration to national refuges and public and private projects in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona.

The value of the projects, which are expected to generate new jobs, will come to nearly $30 million. The FWS has previously announced projects funded by stimulus money in Georgia, California, Pennsylvania, Washington, Nebraska, Colorado and Alaska. For more info on projects in those states see the FWS website , which lists all the projects being funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Among the Southwest developments:

• The Texas Chenier Plain Refuge Complex will get a new headquarters building and visitors’ facility, which were destroyed last fall by Hurricane Ike.
• Fisheries in Arizona will receive $2.3 million for modernizing and energy renovations.
• Restorative work at the Bahia Grande wetlands at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, including two bridges to and other improvements to benefit water birds.
• Jobs for high school and college students at a variety of refuges in all four states.
• Canal improvements at Havasu WIldlife Refuge in Arizona that will improve water delivery and benefit more than 4,000 acres of refuge lands
• Salt Cedar Removal on Bitter Lake WIldlife Refuge in New Mexico that will promote native shrub growth and increase biodiversity and wetland habitat.

The projects represent long-standing needs (with the exception of the hurricane repairs) of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It selected the projects based on their merit and ability to generate a large number of jobs quickly.

The public can follow the projects on the Interior Department’s Recovery website, and submit questions, ideas or concerns pertaining to the projects. See a full list of funded projects at the website.

The $819 billion economic stimulus plan passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday has been criticized for containing too many short-term measures aimed at stimulating the flagging economy – or too few; for being too focused on green infrastructure – or not focused enough.

Those arguments aside, there are many provisions in the House bill that passed Wednesday that will help individuals and their communities save money and energy, simultaneously, and in doing so, take a swipe at global warming.

“The House bill adopted (yesterday) would make increased energy efficiency a hallmark of the nation’s economic recovery with the infusion of federal funds for efficiency initiatives throughout the economy – to consumers, to businesses, to state and local governments, and more,” said Kateri Callahan, president of the advocacy group, Alliance to Save Energy.

According to the Alliance, which has sifted through the massive bill to pull out the energy-saving components, there are several meaningful ways money will flow from D.C. to help green America. Many of these measures also will create spending, for example, by offering consumers incentives to buy hybrid cars and newer furnaces.

But some are longer term ideas that attempt to knit energy efficiency into the fabric of the American economy. There’s money for energy research and innovation and federal dollars for local communities that want to make their schools more energy-wise or reduce the carbon emissions of city vehicles.

It includes:

• $14 billion for school repair (with stipulations that educational agencies use at least 25 percent of the money for modernization, renovation or repairs. Read: not new schools.)

• $11 billion to modernize the energy grid (allowing customers to more easily access renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power

• $9 billion for public transportation, including $1.1 billion for Amtrak construction to enlarge inter-city rail service

• $2.5 billion in energy retrofitting grants for owners of assisted housing projects

• $500 million for green jobs, for research and training projects that prepare works for careers in renewable energy and energy-saving programs

• $400 million to help state and local governments buy alternative-fuel vehicles

• $300 million to support state rebates to consumers who replace old appliances with Energy Star appliances

• $200 million for the Plug-In Electric Drive Vehicle Program, which gives grants to state and local governments for projects that encourage plug-in electric (hybrid) vehicles
]]> http://www.greenrightnow.com/kabc/2009/01/29/how-the-house-stimulus-bill-would-help-green-your-house/feed/ 0 http://www.greenrightnow.com/kabc/2009/01/22/stimulating-green-ideas/ http://www.greenrightnow.com/kabc/2009/01/22/stimulating-green-ideas/#comments Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:11:52 +0000 BKessler http://www.greenrightnow.com/?p=2588 By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

The stimulus package pending in Congress promises to create jobs, but how green these plans will be is cause for concern and debate.

While environmental advocates are glad to gleeful over the promise of the new administration, they still have questions: Will the focus on energy security overshadow other green moves? Will the sagging economy, which has claimed jobs at solar and wind energy companies just as it has in traditional industries, preempt plans to curb global warming?

While few quibble with emergency assistance to “Main Street,” those with visions of a bright green future worry that funds could be spent before a more orchestrated plan to marry jobs and green initiatives can be developed.

]]> By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

The stimulus package pending in Congress promises to create jobs, but how green these plans will be is cause for concern and debate.

While environmental advocates are glad to gleeful over the promise of the new administration, they still have questions: Will the focus on energy security overshadow other green moves? Will the sagging economy, which has claimed jobs at solar and wind energy companies just as it has in traditional industries, preempt plans to curb global warming?

While few quibble with emergency assistance to “Main Street,” those with visions of a bright green future worry that money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 could be spent before a more orchestrated plan to marry jobs and green initiatives can be developed or win favor.

Transportation advocates, for instance, noticed that a draft of the stimulus proposal devotes a lot of dollars ($30 billion) to highways, which they see as a missed opportunity to develop mass transit (tagged to get $10 billion). They say that building up intra-city transit and railway connections between American cities could create jobs and energy-efficiencies, with more staying power.

A group of architects, promoting green building as a way out of the economic mire, also sees a window of opportunity in the present bleak space. They propose that buildings, which account for some 40 to 50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, could be constructed to be carbon neutral by 2030. That’s right, zero emissions. But only if we stop now to reconsider how we need to change construction practices. Led by Ed Mazria of New Mexico, Architecture 2030 has proposed the 2030 Challenge Stimulus Plan that envisions a new path for the building trades that would create jobs, vastly reduce energy consumption and lower expenses for homeowners, who’d get better mortgage rates in exchange for making energy retrofits.

Read more about this captivating proposal in our story Saving America with energy efficient homes and better mortgages by Diane Porter.

Conservationists, meanwhile, are hoping that stimulus money can help repair national parks and refuges. It’s hard to find flaws in their proposal to put Americans to work fixing up parks and wilderness areas. The jobs created would be skilled and local by nature (no pun intended); the projects would strengthen our infrastructure and help preserve the biodiversity we’re losing to development. Not only that, it worked (or didn’t work, depending on the historian at the podium) once before during the Roosevelt years, when the Works Project Administration tossed up public buildings like pizza pastry, including some in national parks.

Get up to speed in It’s a natural: Rebuild America’s refuges and parks with green jobs by Shermakaye Bass.

Yes, it’s a new day in Washington, but is it a Green Day?

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

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