Posted on 12/22/2009 2:47:22 AM PST by reaganaut1
When federal inspectors visited Illinois recently to see how the state was using $242 million in stimulus money for weatherizing homes, they were troubled by what they found.
A weatherization contractor had done slipshod work, installing a furnace that leaked gas in one home, they said, and the local agency overseeing the work had failed to detect the leak. The state was not inspecting the work of all the agencies administering the work, and the federal government was not making required site visits. In short, both the state and federal oversight of the program fell short, they found.
The Department of Energy’s inspector general, Gregory H. Friedman, was so concerned by what his investigators found in Illinois that he issued an unusual “management alert” this month, rather than waiting for a final audit report to be issued. The management alert cautioned that the lack of oversight was putting the goals of the weatherization program — which is intended to cut energy use and utility bills — at risk. And it warned that “the safety of homeowners and area residents could be placed in jeopardy if substandard weatherization work goes undetected.”
The alarms about the weatherization program — which were being sounded in the home state of its champion, President Obama, who proposed expanding it before taking office — underscored the challenges in taking a government program and supersizing it with stimulus cash.
The stimulus program is giving the weatherization program $5 billion over the next couple of years, nearly as much as the program has spent since its creation in the 1970s. Illinois, chosen for an inspection along with three other states, stands to get more weatherization money over the next few years than the entire nation did last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Republicans should use this story as ammunition to try to stop "Cash for Caulkers".
“Weatherization” is new furnaces, refrigerators and flat-screen TVs for Obama’s constituency.
Wait til oversight fails at healthcare!
I think a lot of this is supposed to go to minority-owned businesses, isn’t it? I would expect sloppy, unprofessional work from little companies like that, probably thrown together just to get federal monies.
This program could be a godsend. Texas has spent $1.8 million to weatherize just seven homes.
A weatherization contractor had done slipshod work, installing a furnace that leaked gas
Leaking Gas? No biggie.
I realize 'most people' would smell the gas and immediately call the Gas Company.
But in 'da hood' that's considered 'Air Freshener'.
Ooops. my bad.
............ 
Just another govt program working exactly as planned but not as promised.
I went to a christmas party this week. I did not want to talk any politics but some big mouth started telling me about a friend who was going to make a killing on the weatherizing project. Since I did not want to talk about politics I said he was probably going to get paid 50.00 to put on ten cents of caulk. He immediately shut up and went to talk to someone else. I heard him mumbling that he did not mind paying taxes if jobs were goint to people here in the US and health care was going to those who did not have it. Then I heard him boasting HE did not have health insurance cause HE did not want to pay for it. I started laughing at that point. He ruined the party for me.
You need a new group of friends to party with, IMO.
Please not to use “oversight” and “Illinois” in same sentence, make lose lunch.
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