The Recovery Act Blog

The Winds of Recovery are Blowing Across the Nation

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) released their 4^th Quarter 2009 industry assessment, in which they credited the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) with almost solely turning a potential decline into historic growth in the U.S. wind industry.  According to their press release:

Early last year, before [ARRA], the industry anticipated that in 2009 wind power development might drop by as much as 50% from 2008 levels, with equivalent job losses.  The clear commitment by the President to create clean energy jobs and the swift implementation of ARRA incentives by the Administration in mid-summer reversed the situation. Recovery Act incentives spurred the growth of construction, operations and maintenance, and management jobs, helping the industry to save and create jobs in those sectors and shine as a bright spot in the economy.

ARRA included more than $80 billion in clean energy investments.  Through these investments, American companies and American workers are involved in unprecedented growth in the generation of renewable energy, expanding manufacturing capacity for clean energy, advancing vehicle and fuel technologies, and building a bigger, better, smarter electric grid... all while saving and creating jobs here at home.  Some of the direct benefits this report identifies include:

• The nation's fleet of wind plants grew by 39% last year alone. 
• America's wind power fleet will avoid an estimated 62 million tons of greenhouse gases annually, equivalent to taking 10.5 million cars off the road.

This report is good news, and it is consistent with the clean energy jobs numbers recently released by the President's Council of Economic Advisors.  Across the country, communities are beginning to establish the clean energy industries that will power the 21st century global economy.  Just last week, President Obama got to see firsthand how clean energy investments are putting people to work during his visit to the Wind Turbine Manufacturing and Fab Lab facilities at Lorain County Community College (LCCC) in Elyria, Ohio.  LCCC is offering the first associate's degree credit program in Ohio in the burgeoning field of wind turbine power generation.  This program will train students to become installation and maintenance professionals in the wind energy sector.  The new associate's degree program will cover an overview of alternative energy sources, with specialized training in electronics, electronic controls, mechanical systems and more. 

During the visit, the President spoke on the undertapped potential for clean energy jobs:

That's why I'm calling on Congress to pass a jobs bill to put more Americans to work building off our Recovery Act; put more Americans back to work rebuilding roads and railways; provide tax breaks to small businesses for hiring people; offer families incentives to make their homes more energy-efficient, saving them money while creating jobs.

That's why we enacted initiatives that are beginning to give rise to a clean energy economy.  That's part of what's going on in this community college.  If we hadn't done anything with the Recovery Act, talk to the people who are building wind turbines and solar panels.  They would have told you their industry was about to collapse because credit had completely frozen.  And now you're seeing all across Ohio some of the -- this state has received more funds than just about anybody in order to build on that clean energy economy -- new cutting-edge wind turbines and batteries that are going to be going into energy-efficient cars.

Almost $25 million of our investment went to a plant right here in Elyria that's helping produce the car batteries of the future.  That's what we're going to keep on doing for the rest of 2010 and 2011 and 2012, until we've got this country working again. 

The AWEA assessment shows the solid progress made over the last year, but there is still more to be done to both ensure a long-term market signal  for renewables and to ensure the U.S. is the global leader in clean energy technology.  To achieve this goal, Congress must pass comprehensive energy and climate legislation to make renewable energy the profitable kind of energy and provide business with the certainty and predictability they need. The House of Representatives has already passed such legislation and the Senate is working to do the same. The President will continue to make passage of legislation a top priority given its benefits for our economy, our security and the environment.

Heather Zichal is Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change

CNN Sets the Record Straight

Last month, two Senators – who, by the way, opposed the Recovery Act from the beginning – released a report claiming that Recovery Act funds have largely been wasted or mismanaged and the program is not working.  Curiously, their report came just as we learned the economy had begun to grow again for the first time in more than a year – something many economists say is largely due to the Recovery Act – and right after the Congressional Budget Office, Congress’s nonpartisan research arm embraced by Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, said that the Recovery Act was already responsible for well over 1 million jobs.  At the time, we debunked many of the claims in the report. 

But CNN recently decided to find out for themselves – and the verdict couldn’t be more clear:

“But we took a closer look at the Senators’ top ten examples of so-called waste, we found nine of the ten did not tell the whole story and in some cases were inaccurate.”  [CNN, 1/25/10]

You may recall the Senators’ claim at the time that: “The tranquil hamlet of Bainbridge Island, Washington, received $190,000 to upgrade a patrol boat for which it has little need—while it considers downsizing its police force.” [McCain/Coburn Stimulus Checkup, 12/8/10] 

• Not true, Lt. Bob Day of the Bainbridge Island Police Department told CNN: 
  • “There's some technology we'll be getting with this grant that is going to be able to help us better protect the port and to share information with port security partners.”  [Lt. Bob Day, CNN, 1/25/10]
• In fact, Lt. Day questions whether the two Senators understand security priorities:
  • “Unless Senators Coburn and McCain think that homeland defense and port security is something that really isn't important and it isn't a priority, I would take exception with their estimate on that.”  [Lt. Bob Day, CNN, 1/25/10]
• And notes the purchase supports jobs:
  • “The vendors we’re working with, it's keeping their people employed.”  [Lt. Bob Day, CNN, 1/25/10]
• CNN’s verdict?
  • “[T]hey called the upgrade to this boat unnecessary in a small town they call a tranquil hamlet. But more than 6 million passengers travel each year on the ferry between Bainbridge island and Seattle.  City officials say the ferry system is a high risk security target and the stimulus money a valid investment. The Department of Homeland Security agrees.” [CNN, 1/25/10]

And then there was the Senators’ claim that: An “almost empty mall” was awarded an energy grant to install a geothermal heating and cooling system. [McCain/Coburn Stimulus Checkup, 12/8/10]

• Not true, developer Dave Thrash told CNN - the mall already has three department stores committed to the new project:
  • “We're not going to heat an empty mall. We're developing the property into a modern open-air center, and the goal is to deploy this technology into the commercial space.”  [Dave Thrash, CNN, 1/25/10]
• In fact, the project will create more than 200 jobs and cut costs the Department of Energy’s Matt Rogers notes:
  • “Jobs, cost and innovation. What made us excited were the ability to create more than 200 jobs for just the construction of this project…. And in the particular technology that they are using here is an innovative approach to ground source heat pumps that actually makes the capital cost lower.”  [Matt Rogers, CNN, 1/25/10]

If this were the first time the Senators had released a report on the Recovery Act that had more holes than a block of Swiss cheese, it might be easier to consider this a simple case of confusion.  But we aren’t talking about a great track record with accuracy here.  The last time the Senators went through this exercise, more than half of the items in that report turned out to be false or misleading claims as well – while other projects attacked included medical research to help hearing impaired children, and a state of the art project to create jobs in advanced technology.

While this may have been an entertaining exercise for the two Senators, the underlying issues here could not be more serious.  Last year, we faced the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression – and while others, including the two Senators, would have preferred to do nothing, we chose to act through the Recovery Act and other economic rescue efforts.  Nearly a year later, the evidence is now undeniable that the Recovery Act is working to create jobs and drive economic growth across the country.  In fact,  the CBO now says the Recovery Act is responsible for as many as 2.4 million jobs through projects like these:

• In Oklahoma, the Recovery Act is helping build new flood-control dams and repair old, unsafe, and obsolete dams across the state – a move that not only creates jobs, but saves taxpayer dollars usually spent cleaning up floods. 
• In Arizona, a local company is putting $99 million in Recovery funds, which were matched by an equal amount of private capital, to launch the largest deployment of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure in U.S. history – an effort the company says will create an additional 750 position across multiple states. 

The question is not whether the Recovery Act is money well-spent.  Everyone from independent economists and the CBO to Republican and Democratic governors and workers across the country on the job at Recovery projects says that it is.  The question is whether critics like the two Senators will finally admit that they were wrong to oppose this vital job-creating legislation - and that it’s working in Arizona, Oklahoma and across the country.

Liz Oxhorn is Recovery Act Communications Director