Platts Energy Podium: U.S. DOE Spending $1 Billion Monthly on Stimulus

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) chief of economic stimulus spending said Thursday at the Platts Energy Podium newsmaker event that the agency is spending about $1 billion per month under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a pace that will largely continue until the funds are exhausted.

In addition, DOE is poised to speed up the pace of granting loan guarantees for all types of projects.

DOE received nearly $33 billion under the Recovery Act for grants and contracts to support clean energy and energy efficiency projects, virtually all of which has been obligated, Matt Rogers, DOE's senior adviser for stimulus activities, said at the Podium event in Washington, D.C. Of that, the department has spent $7.3 billion.

Rogers appeared at the Podium with Cathy Zoi, DOE's assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy.

"The Department of Energy will continue to outlay $800 million to $1 billion every month for the next 18 months before this portfolio of projects really begins to ramp down," Rogers said.

Rogers also said DOE's loan guarantee program, which has about $66 billion in authority, mostly non-stimulus spending, will soon be issuing awards at a pace of three or four per month.

The program, mandated by Congress in 2005, had not issued a single loan guarantee until the Obama administration came to office in early 2009. Since then, the department has selected 14 projects for loan guarantees.

The loan guarantee office is now working with batches of applications to speed up the process. Specifically, Rogers said there are several large wind, solar and biofuels projects moving through the system.

In addition, he said that the process for finalizing loans – so far only three have been finalized out of 14 – would speed up as well, thanks to more private capital entering the market.

A recording of the Rogers and Zoi session is available via podcast at this link:

http://platts.com/PodcastsDetail/EnergyPodium/energypodium.  You may be asked to complete a one-time-only cost-free Platts website log-in if you haven't filled one out previously.  

Sponsored by Platts, a leading global energy and metals information provider, Platts Energy Podium provides an ongoing forum for prominent newsmakers and the press to address important energy and environmental issues.

For more information on energy and energy policy, visit the Platts website at www.platts.com.

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SOURCE Platts