Chris Good at The Atlantic has a good post about Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s plans to reform how the Dept. of Energy spends its money—especially the $38.7 billion alloted to the DoE in Obama’s stimulus package.
Photo by Flickr user rebuildingdemocracy
Much to Chu’s credit—who, so far, has only impressed as Energy Sec.—he wants to streamline how the stimulus money is spent so as to put that nearly $40 billion into action as soon as possible.
As The Atlantic’s Good writes:
“We have a plan going forward where we can reduce what could have been years down to months, and we feel very strongly that this thing will work,” Chu said of DoE spending as luminaries such as Bill Cinton, Al Gore, T. Boone Pickens, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi listened.
Chu’s reforms include rolling appraisals of applications for loans and funding, using outside contractors to underwrite loans, more staff and resources to process applications, and simplifying application paperwork. Chu has appointed Matt Rogers, a former senior partner at consulting giant McKinsey & Company, who also worked on energy procurement reform as part of Obama’s transition team, to implement these reforms and oversee the stimulus money.
The stimulus placed $38.7 billion in the department’s hands, with heavy emphases on alternative energy, efficiency, and infrastructure modernization. DoE says it will start offering loan guarantees under stimulus provisions early this summer, and that 70 percent of the stimulus cash will be spent by the end of next year.
It’s great to hear a member of Obama’s cabinet stress the importance of making use of the stimulus money included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—and doing so in a timely, efficient manner. After the gross mismanagement of the TARP stimulus last fall, woefully bungled by Henry Paulson and his crew, the American public expects nothing less than a clear, swift and successful implementation of Obama’s stimulus package. Just recently Obama said that recipients of tax cuts included in the stimulus would start seeing the benefits of these cuts by April 1.
But I’m in the camp that doesn’t believe tax cuts are the answer—rebuilding the country’s infrastructure is. And as many have argued with whom I agree, we need to rebuild the economy into a green economy—to make the U.S. economically competitive again, to repair and advance our pathetic national infrastructure.
It’s great to hear that Chu—unlike other notoriously slow federal departments—wants to put the DoE’s stimulus funding to work now.
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