Thursday, June 11, 2009 10:53 PM CDT
COLUMN: Energy secretary Chu agrees with area on
project money need
By BILL LAIR, Managing Editor
blair@jg-tc.com
“Chu wants faster action on stimulus money”
— Associated Press headline
Energy Secretary Steven Chu is concerned over the slow pace that his department is distributing money under the federal economic recovery plan.
Chu isn’t clueless, after all!
In an interview with The Associated Press, Chu said Thursday he’s going to his tell his people “this cannot be business as usual.”
Duh!
That’s what some of us have been trying to tell him for months.
According to AP, the Energy Department has about $39 billion under the economic stimulus program, but has awarded only $4.4 billion as of June 7.
Chu said “DOE offices involved in fossil energy and electricity transmission programs” were areas that haven’t spent funds.
The department’s Office of Fossil Energy has been authorized $3.4 billion, including funds for coal plant carbon capture programs, but has yet to award a single dollar.
The Office of Fossil Energy is the office that would fund the FutureGen project in Mattoon.
One of those “coal plant carbon capture programs” is FutureGen in Mattoon.
Look, I know President Obama’s administration has more pans in the fire than a Cracker Barrel restaurant. Jeepers, they’re into banking and how much compensation the execs can get, they have a major share in the auto industry and he wants a radical change in the nation’s health care system.
But FutureGen is ready to go. All it needs is the release of funds from DOE which Chu, apparently, wants to distribute.
Obama supporters say the president supports FutureGen. But we haven’t seen the federal funds promised.
Chu has said on a couple of occasions the FutureGen project has merit. And his department has the money.
But we haven’t seen that money yet.
How are the feds going to pay for an X-ray in a new health care system when they can’t disburse funds for a project they supposedly support and for which the money already has been appropriated?
Officials from FutureGen and Chu’s DOE continue to talk, so there is hope.
And when Greenpeace tried to protest at the FutureGen site several weeks ago, that was the most positive sign of all that the project might happen.
Greenpeace wouldn’t go to all that trouble for a project that has been scrapped, would it?
Gov. Pat Quinn did not take our suggestion to spend some time at Boys State and Girls State.
Officials from both citizenship organizations said they have no statewide government officeholders attending again this year.
Several weeks ago, the Journal Gazette and Times-Courier, in an editorial, encouraged Quinn to come to Boys State or Girls State and meet with the high school boys and girls who are studying state government.
Boys State concludes today at Eastern Illinois University. Girls State starts on Saturday.
The Girls State program will have a patriotic theme.
On Sunday, Flag Day, the Girls State participants will have an evening program at the EIU Union Grand Ballroom in which veterans of several wars will discuss their deployments.
A female military colonel will be a speaker later next week while a flag retirement ceremony is planned for 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Participants at Boys State and Girls State run for elected offices in cities, counties and statewide.
But no governor, for a number of years, has been able to find the time to talk to young, enthusiastic people about public service in recent years.
A sad commentary.
In February, we wrote about Vivian and Matt White running while Vivian’s son, Army Pfc. Brian Bales, is deployed to Iraq.
The Whites want to run 6,436 miles this year - the distance from Charleston to Kirkuk, Iraq, near where Brian is deployed.
Family members and friends are helping log the miles. Later, a running group in Davenport, Iowa, heard about the Whites’ goal and also began contributing miles.
Then, a reporter for Sports Illustrated learned of the story.
And, if you are an SI subscriber you already may have seen the “Point After” column by Chris Ballard in the June 15 issue.
Subscribers got the June 15 issue this week. The magazine should be on newstands in the next couple days.
It’s a full-page article entitled “Going the Distance”, but here is a brief excerpt:
“Know what it feels like to have a whole community running for you? Every week Brian receives an updated Charleston-to-Kirkuk map, with a graphic of tiny footprints marching toward him, and he posts it above his bunk, next to the newspaper clipping. Fellow soldiers come by to follow the progress.
“‘It makes me feel like I’m not forgotten and that people still care about us over here,’ he says via e-mail, adding that it’s hard to overstate the value of such support.”
The Whites and their “running club” have passed 4,000 miles.
It’s a touching story and a well-written article that sheds light on the relationship between one mother and her son who has gone off to war.
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kamfong wrote on Jun 12, 2009 2:58 AM: