You might have seen road construction
signs that read, “Project funded by the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”
That’s economic stimulus money being spent
on road repair and construction. Shawn Allee reports one environmental group wishes
there were less construction and more repair:
Transcript
You might have seen road construction signs that read, “Project funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”
That’s economic stimulus money being spent on road repair and construction.
Shawn Allee reports one environmental group wishes there were less construction and more repair.
The land-use policy group Smart Growth America tracked how much stimulus money is going toward road repair versus road construction.
The group’s state policy director Will Schroeer says new roads and bridges are getting about a third of transportation stimulus dollars.
Schroeer says to employ the most people, we should be spending even more on repair, not construction.
“The largest reason for that is that you don’t have to buy any land to repair the road and as soon as you start buying land, that’s money that you can’t put toward wages and other things that produce secondary employment.”
Shroeer’ says about 20 percent of transportation stimulus money is still up for grabs.
That gives states about a year to turn spending toward projects his group advocates, including road and bridge repair and public transit.
It is hoped that the "Cash for Clunkers" bill will stimulate fledgling car sales (Photo by Samara Freemark)
The so-called “Cash for Clunkers” bill has passed the US House. Automakers say it could help boost sluggish sales if it passes the Senate and gets signed into law. But as Rebecca Williams reports some people think the bill isn’t very green:
Transcript
The so-called “Cash for Clunkers” bill has passed the US House. Automakers say it could help boost sluggish sales if it passes the Senate and gets signed into law. But as Rebecca Williams reports some people think the bill isn’t very green:
If you have a car or truck that gets 18 miles per gallon or less, under this bill, you’d get to trade it in for a more fuel efficient car or truck. The old car would get scrapped.
You’d get a voucher for several thousand dollars. Old gas guzzlers would get taken off the road.
But Ann Mesnikoff points out: in the House bill you could trade in an old SUV that gets, say, 14 miles per gallon… for a new SUV that gets just two miles per gallon more.
She directs Sierra Club’s Green Transportation Campaign.
“The key things to change in the cash for clunkers program are to ensure that taxpayer dollars are going to buy vehicles that have at least better than average fuel economy. Not those that can’t even meet today’s fuel economy standards.”
Congress is also going to have to figure out how to pay for the bill. It’s expected to cost about 4 billion dollars.
"Power house mechanic working on steam pump" By Lewis Hine, 1920 (Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Work Projects Administration)
Steam plants haven’t been en vogue since Thomas Edison’s day. But now, they’re back in the spotlight thanks to the Obama administration. The Department of Energy just got 106-million dollars worth of stimulus money to fund steam-related projects. Jennifer Guerra takes us back to the future:
Transcript
Steam plants haven’t been en vogue since Thomas Edison’s day. But now, they’re back in the spotlight thanks to the Obama administration. The Department of Energy just got 106-million dollars worth of stimulus money to fund steam-related projects. Jennifer Guerra takes us back to the future:
(sound of steam)
You hear that? That’s the sound of efficiency.
It’s what you get when you combine steam pipes with a giant jet engine.
These steam systems are called combined heat and power, or CHP, and the government wants to see more of them.
Getting energy from coal-burning power plants isn’t very efficient. Most CHP systems, on the other hand, use natural gas and are more than 80% efficient.
The DOE says that’s like taking 45 million cars off the road.
Neal Elliot is with the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
“So whether you’re concerned about local air quality or whether you’re talking about global climate change gasses, the more efficient the system, the lower the emissions.”
And if you’re worried about seeing a giant CHP plant pop up in your backyard – don’t worry, most CHP systems are underground.
Jack Brown is an Outreach Technician for Community Resource Project, helping to spread the word about weatherization services that families may be eligible for. In his 23 years at Community Resource, Brown says he’s assessed about 5,000 homes. (Photo by Amy Standen)
Utility bills at this Natomas, California house often hit $500 a month. Small changes, like door weather strips, will reduce utility bills by as much as 20% (Photo by Amy Standen)
From left to right, Natomas residents Aniya Randle, TinaMarie Dunn,Devyn Wiggins, Shyra Randle, and Ajay Cummins (Photo by Amy Standen)
Solar panels and wind turbines get most of the buzz, but it’s far easier and cheaper to save energy than it is to make more of it. Now, President Obama’s economic stimulus package
is pouring billions into energy-efficiency programs. As Amy Standen reports, it’s shining a new spotlight on some of the simpler ways we can all reduce our energy use:
Transcript
Solar panels and wind turbines get most of the buzz, but it’s far easier and cheaper to save
energy than it is to make more of it. Now, President Obama’s economic stimulus package
is pouring billions into energy-efficiency programs. As Amy Standen reports, it’s shining
a new spotlight on some of the simpler ways we can all reduce our energy use:
Sure, I’ve thought about buying solar panels to put on my roof. There’s a perfect spot on
the south-facing slope – maybe we could power the whole house. But there are some
easier things we could do first – like insulate the attic or weather strip the doors. And yet,
somehow I never quite get around to them.
Why is that? Well James Sweeney directs the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center at
Stanford, and he has a theory.
“Energy efficiency turns out to have low salience to people.”
Which is to say, it’s maybe… a little bit boring?
“It’s very boring.”
But if your eyes start to glaze over at the mere mention of the word “efficiency,” consider
the compact fluorescent light bulb.
“The easiest thing everyone can do is change their lighting.”
If everyone in the U.S. traded in their old incandescent light bulbs for compact
fluorescents, we’d cut electricity use by about 2%.
Which, maybe, doesn’t sound so impressive – until you consider the fact that all the solar
and all the wind power combined in the entire country amounts to point .4% of our total
energy use. That’s 0.4.
“The cleanest energy is the energy you don’t need in the first place.”
That fact has not been lost on the Obama White House. The American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act is pouring approximately 20 billion dollars into efficiency projects.
Five billion of that will fund what’s called the Weatherization Assistance Program, which
helps low-income families weatherproof their homes. To qualify, a family of four must
make less than $44 thousand dollars a year.
(sound of someone giving directions – “Take 25 and go to El Paso Road”)
That stimulus cash funds local non-profits like Community Resource Project, in
Sacramento, California. Since January, Community Resource’s budget has tripled, from
1.3 to 4.5 million dollars a year. They’re buying new trucks, hiring at all levels, and
going to more and more homes.
(sound of knocking at a door)
Like this one – a five-bedroom stucco ranch house in a newer suburban development
outside of Sacramento.
(sound of door opening)
“Hello, how are you doing?”
At the door is TinaMarie Dunn, a family friend who’s showing us around today. She
gives a squeeze to two-year old Anaya, one of ten children who live here.
“Look Anaya, say cheese!” (Anaya: Cheese!)
Dunn says utility bills here can hit $500 dollars a month. She says the house just doesn’t
work right.
“When the heat is on, downstairs is hot, downstairs is cold. When the air’s on, the
upstairs is cold, the downstairs is hot.”
Community Resource’s Dana Gonzalez walks into the kitchen, and pauses to take a look
around.
Standen: “So when you walked in, what was the first thing you saw?”
Gonzalez: “It’s funny. You see this door shoe and you see, actually the bottom rubber
is gone.”
He points to a two-inch gap under the front door.
“And if you put your hand here, you can actually feel the air. Anytime they kick on
their heat and cool, that’s definitely affecting their house, and in the long run, affects
their bill.”
Community Resource will spend about $1500 here, aiming to cut monthly utility bills by
as much as 20%.
They’ll weather strip the doors, patch up holes in the walls, install CFL bulbs. We’re not
talking solar panels or radiant heating – just small, mostly inexpensive adjustments that
cumulatively, have a huge impact.
The White House says these efficiency projects will create thousands of jobs, but there’s
also concern that the huge cash infusion is a recipe for fraud and mismanagement.
Department of Energy officials have called for extra vigilance in the disbursement of
weatherization cash. But, they say, the benefits, both environmental and economic, far
outweigh the risks.
Farmers have until the end of this week to apply for a program that would
pay them to let in more flood water (Photo by Keith Weller, courtesy of the USDA)
Some federal stimulus money will be used to help reduce reduce flooding problems. Chuck Quirmbach reports the government wants farmers to store more water in floodplains:
Transcript
Some federal stimulus money will be used to help reduce flooding problems. Chuck Quirmbach reports that the government wants farmers to store more water in floodplains:
The federal stimulus package has 145-million dollars to buy easements on farmland.
Farmers have until the end of this week to apply for a program that would pay them to let in more flood water.
Land that’s flooded within the last year or twice in the last decade is eligible.
Don Baloun is with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. He says farmers would eventually stop growing some crops and instead allow the planting of water-absorbing trees or grasses.
“If it has been obstructed and farmed let’s say with a dike or levee, we would breach that dike or levee and open up the floodplain, the field in particular, to store floodwaters and relieve the downstream damages.”
Baloun says allowing more water back into floodplains might reduce the threat of flooding to towns and cities along rivers.
Labor and energy groups say they want the federal government to create a Clean Energy Corps. The say the Corps would retro-fit and upgrade old buildings and, as Chuck Quirmbach reports, create a lot of jobs in the process:
Transcript
Labor and energy groups say they want the federal government to create a Clean Energy Corps. The say the Corps would retro-fit and upgrade old buildings and, as Chuck Quirmbach reports, create a lot of jobs in the process:
Some cities and states have programs that work on making older buildings more energy efficient.
Now, progressive think tanks have joined unions and alternative energy groups to ask for a national program.
Bracken Hendricks is with the Center for American Progress. He says it’s critical for the federal government to help pay to make older structures more efficient.
“For a long time, we’ve made great inroads on improving the energy efficiency and the performance of new buildings with tools like green building standards. But we really haven’t had a way to go and systematically block by block retrofit and weatherize homes.”
Hendricks says the clean energy corps would help the umemployed find work in the building and construction trades.
The coalition backing the corps says the money for the program could come from the stimulus package or other upcoming legislation.
The stimulus bill includes funds for a light rail Amtrak system, however the money could be tied in up in approval processes for quite a while. (Photo courtesy of the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation)
There’s money in the stimulus package for high speed rail projects. Lester Graham reports Amtrak is waiting to see how the money might be spent:
Transcript
There’s money in the stimulus package for high speed rail projects. Lester Graham reports Amtrak is waiting to see how the money might be spent:
Eight billion dollars is set aside for high speed rail projects. So, where’s Amtrak going to start?
Turns out Amtrak doesn’t really make the decisions. Marc Magliari is a spokesman for Amtrak. He says the passenger train company has submitted a plan to the Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration. That office is now asking the different state governors what they’d like. Amtrak is just… waiting.
“I’m not going to speculate on the speed under which the FRA will make its make its grant decisions and which grant decisions it will make. That would not be our call.”
We do know any project under the stimulus plan has to be started within the next 18 months.
Amtrak basically has to hope that each governor understands not only his or her own state’s needs, but how their decisions might affect a high-speed rail network.
For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
An EPA scientist testing online sensors for water distribution systems (Photo courtesy of the US Office of Management and Budget)
The recession is hitting more than banks and homes these days. State budget cuts and no increases from the federal government are straining research labs and scientists. Adam Allington reports the effects might not be as obvious or immediate as the house foreclosures and the credit crisis, the effect on science jobs and innovation might be just as bad:
Transcript
The recession is hitting more than banks and homes these days. State budget cuts and no increases from the federal government are straining research labs and scientists. Adam Allington reports the effects might not be as obvious or immediate as the house foreclosures and the credit crisis, the effect on science jobs and innovation might be just as bad:
At first glance there’s not much in Dale Dorsett’s lab beyond the usual – you know, grad students in white lab coats, centrifuges, test tubes.
Even though his lab is relatively small, his costs are not.
He takes me toward a locked room in the back of the lab containing a single microscope.
“It’s a laser scanning confocal microscope, which is essential for part of our work. That cost – $350,000 – now you know why we keep it locked.”
Dale is a molecular biologist at St. Louis University. He studies a genetic disorder that affects about one in ten-thousand humans.
Well, that is, when he can.
These days Dorsett says he spends more of his time filling out grant applications than he does on his research.
And he’s not the only one in this pickle. Winning grants for research is getting tough.
“The problem becomes when it gets so competitive that even really deserving projects, or very productive scientists who are doing really good work can’t get funded and that’s the situation we’re in right now.”
Funding from organizations like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation has been slipping for years. It’s a big problem.
It used to be about 30% of grant applications were successful. Now, that success rate has slipped into the teens.
And even those researchers who do get funded say grant preference is often given to projects that produce immediate results – which just isn’t the way most science works.
“I’m conservative because otherwise the lab would go under.”
Kristen Kroll runs a lab studying stem cells at Washington University.
“I would love to be more aggressive about what we go after, which connections we try to make to other models. I think I’ve curbed what we could be doing to a point where what we are doing is sustainable in the current funding climate.”
Kroll says there is such a back log of quality grant applications on file at the NIH and NSF, grant reviewers aren’t even separating wheat from chaff any more they’re separating wheat from wheat. So a lot of good research just doesn’t happen.
And in a world economy the U.S. isn’t the only player in the market for innovation. Other countries could gain an advantage in science.
James McCarter is the Chief Scientist for Divergence, a St. Louis-based biotech company.
“The emergence of India and China, in addition to Japan and Korea and Europe. There are sizeable countries out there now that are serious in these spaces and are making serious investments and have the talent.”
Now,you might be thinking, won’t that big stimulus package send wave of cash into the coffers of government research agencies – problem solved right?
Not so much. While a billion dollar shot in arm might be welcome news for some labs, many advisors worry that the long-term effect might actually exacerbate the funding crisis.
John Russell is the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies at Washington University. He says, a big pile of cash all at once does nothing for ongoing research that can take years to complete.
“One of the concerns about a big bubble is that if it’s just a bubble is that it takes five years to train somebody so it needs to be more spread out I think to be effective.”
Russell warns universities considering a building and spending spree to plan carefully, so current projects don’t reach beyond future budget realities.
President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress on February 24
(Photo by Pete Souza, courtesy of the White House)
President Barack Obama outlines his budget tonight before a joint-session of Congress. Lester Graham reports many people will be watching for more investment in what’s be called the “green recovery”:
Transcript
President Barack Obama outlines his budget tonight before a joint-session of Congress. Lester Graham reports many people will be watching for more investment in what’s be called the “green recovery”:
The stimulus package includes money for making government buildings and some homes more energy efficient… and pursuing alternative energy such as wind and solar power.
Robert Heilmayr is a research analyst with World Resources Institute. He says so far the Obama administration has recognized there are long term payoffs in green investments.
“The key next step that I think is missing and I’ll really be paying attention to as Obama addresses Congress is whether he recognizes the stimulus is only the first step, that comprehensive energy and climate policy is necessary and should be a priority moving forward as a follow-up to the stimulus is a big question.”
Heilmayr says the long-term savings in energy conservation will help businesses and everyone else by keeping fuel prices lower in the short-term and give us a step up when the world markets start taking greenhouse gas emissions seriously.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
Because of the down economy, ridership is up. But with the economy flagging, transit companies are having to cut routes and raise fares.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
So with the government’s 787 billion dollar stimulus plan now approved, a lot of folks in state and local government are thinking about the federal dollars that’ll float their way soon. Some mayors are especially eyeing the 8.4 billion for public transit. Rene Gutel looks at who wants to spend what:
Transcript
So with the government’s 787 billion dollar stimulus plan now approved, a lot of folks in state and local government are thinking about the federal dollars that’ll float their way soon. Some mayors are especially eyeing the 8.4 billion for public transit. Rene Gutel looks at who wants to spend what:
Mayors from coast to coast see the stimulus package as one big pot of gold. Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon knows exactly how he’d like transit money spent in his city.
“First and foremost, Light rail.”
(sound of a train)
It’s all about light rail. Phoenix is notorious for its car-culture, freeways and gridlock; Residents worry it’s turning into the next L.A., but a brand new twenty-mile light rail line launched in December.
Trouble is, it’s only one line. It goes from the suburb of Mesa and ends in downtown Phoenix.
Mayor Gordon wants to use federal stimulus money to add a three-mile extension. Gordon says it’s the ultimate shovel-ready project. All planned, just add 250-million dollars and it’s ready to go.
“We could sign a contract with America, with the federal government, that we will turn dirt by March 31st, and we’ll create 7,000 new jobs.”
Those new jobs will be around long enough at least to get the rail extension built. But getting a light rail line is not the same as keeping it running.
Look at San Francisco that has a well developed transit system. They have a different kind of wish list that centers on maintaining the system they already have.
Judson True is a spokesman for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.
“We want to repair light rail vehicles that have been damaged in collisions, we have some cable car kiosks that we’d like to replace, we have change machines we’d like to replace in our metro subway stations.”
And it keeps on going. The American Public Transportation Association has identified nearly 800 public transit projects nationwide ready-to-go within 90 days.
APTA says the projects will not only create hundreds of thousands of jobs, but reduce fuel consumption and decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
But San Francisco’s Judson True says, while he’s grateful for funding for capitol projects…
“Systems like ours in San Francisco also need help on the operating side, and you see that all over the country.”
People are calling it the transit paradox and it’s hit cities like Denver, St. Louis and New York City.
Because of the down economy, ridership is up. And yet most transit systems rely on local and state money to subsidize operations. But with the economy flagging, cities and states are struggling too – and transit companies are having to cut routes and raise fares.
“You have a catch 22, more riders and you have to make service cuts.”
That’s Aaron Golub, an assistant professor in the School of Planning at Arizona State University. Mass transit’s his specialty. He’s worried about transit systems getting gleaming new buses, and kiosks, and buildings but then not having the means to operate them.
“It would be quite ironic if, for example, Phoenix were able to afford a light rail extension while cutting back on light rail service at the same time. Or the worst case, opening a light rail extension and not being able to operate it at all.”
Golub points to studies that say you create more jobs by investing in current transit operations – not capitol projects.
But many mayors across the nation feel light rail and other mass transit is an investment in their future. They’re ready to take on those shovel ready projects now with the hope that it’ll kick start the economy now and by the time the routes are finished, we’ll be out of the recession.
