Government Weatherization Program Costs Tax Payers Big Bucks

Here is another example of going green means taking the green out of your pocket:

Who could forget the $5 billion in Obama administration stimulus money that was going to rapidly create nearly 90,000 green jobs across the country in these tough economic times and make so many thousands of homes all snuggy and warm and energy-efficient these very snowy days?

Well, a new report due out this morning will show the $5-billion program is so riddled with drafts that so far it’s weatherized only about 9,000 homes.

Based on the initial Obama-Biden program promise that it would create 87,000 new jobs its first year, that would be about 10 jobs for each home weatherized so far. Makes for pretty crowded doorways.

ABC News reports that the General Accountability Office will declare today that the Energy Department has fallen woefully behind — about 98.5% behind — the 593,000 homes it initially predicted would be weatherized in the Recovery Act’s very first, very chilly year.  [LA Times]

Read the rest at the link, but according to the LA Times report the cost to weatherize these houses is $57,362 per home.  It seems like it would have been better just to give home owners this money to pay down their mortgage, it probably would have been less wasteful than this program.  Anyway at least the government has not killed anyone with this program yet unlike in Australia:

Environment Minister Peter Garrett will axe the Rudd Government?s disastrous home insulation program – and replace it with another scheme entirely.

Mr Garrett will make the announcement at 1.45pm today, in Sydney.

The $2.5 billion scheme, which has been in place since last year, has led to four deaths, countless injuries and around 100 house fires.

Under the new scheme consumers will have to pay for insulation work and get the Government rebate through Medicare offices.  (…………..)

An industry source told The Age that consistent reports of dodgy installers, including allegations of sexual misconduct on behalf of one installer raised on Radio 3AW this morning, tipped the troubled scheme over the edge.  [Tim Blair]