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
Federal income tax credits for specific home improvements are available now through 2010 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which extended energy efficiency tax credits available in 2006 and 2007 but not 2008.
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 stateme
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.
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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
