Print
Email
Print Edition StoriesFriday, March 27, 2009
Policy Tracker
Energy efficiency boosted by Bay State’s stimulus funds
Local Motors: Open source car maker
Interactive map of Greater Boston tech layoffs in 2009
MHT's Efrain Viscarolasaga: Preparing the smart grid for more power
Grappling with unclear expectations for the $787 billion federal stimulus law, top officials in Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration said Monday it intends to weave energy efficiency measures into nearly all aspects of industry, from patching leaky underground storage tanks to retraining low-income workers to monitor the energy efficiency of homes.
As state agencies brace for a flood of funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and with it new pressures for accountability and efficient spending, officials in the housing, energy, environment and transportation agencies are managing a vastly increased pool of dollars for a seemingly endless wish list of projects.
Undersecretary of Housing and Community Development Tina Brooks said the $8 million she used to oversee to “button up” faulty boilers and leaky windows, ballooned with stimulus dollars to $124 million to “weatherize” homes, bring down their utility costs and increase their energy efficiency.
“With that increase comes the opportunity to blitz neighborhoods,” Brooks said at a conference of energy and environmental executives hosted by the Environmental Business Council at the Summer Street offices of Nixon Peabody LLP.
Brooks said about $20 million of the new funds is available to train workers to audit the energy use of homes, a requirement of any construction backed by stimulus dollars. She said the department was eyeing retraining “lower-skilled, lower-income workers” to build a new force of auditors.
Officials boast that new oversight measures will track every dollar spent through rigorous accounting, but contractors and engineers worry that the web of bureaucracy could slow down the procurement process.
Jeffrey Simon, the Patrick administration’s czar on federal stimulus, said he expects enough engineers will be ready to handle the projects he anticipates will be jumpstarted through the stimulus bill.
“Do I worry about it? Yes, I worry about it,” he said. “But the best information I have is that we’re going to be able to handle that.”
—State House News Service
Comments
If you are commenting using a Facebook account, your profile information may be displayed with your comment depending on your privacy settings. By leaving the 'Post to Facebook' box selected, your comment will be published to your Facebook profile in addition to the space below.
RSS Feeds
