October 31, 2008

The less fortunate can rest a little easier. Congress has doubled the funds provided to them to better enable those residents to keep their homes warm during the winter.

Federal spending on the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, will now be $5.1 billion. The increase has been included in a budget bill aimed at keeping the government running past the current fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. The measure passed in bi-partisan fashion before it was sent to President Bush for his signature, all in an effort to help needy families during tough economic times and through March 2009.

October 17, 2008

Taxpayers may have rescued America's banking system, but will they have to assist the country's nuclear energy program, too?

At issue are federal loan guarantees that assure borrowers that they will get reimbursed in the case of default. As part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Congress authorized such guarantees and then instructed the U.S. Department of Energy to devise the program. About $18.5 billion is now on the table, although some proponents of the nuclear sector say that the amount must be revised upward if some of the 30 proposed plants are to actually get erected.

October 15, 2008

More than a decade later, electricity restructuring divides constituencies. The goal of such public policy has been to increase access to the nation's wires system, thereby encouraging more participation from generators. But the question now is whether the effort has succeeded and what the cost of that pursuit has been.

A recent study by the Government Accountability Office sought to get answers. It found that consensus is lacking, noting that policymakers and stakeholders alike disagree over the extent of such benefits or even whether the regional transmission organizations (RTOs) that have been set up to oversee electricity transport have made significant contributions. The analysis delves into the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's role in the restructuring process, noting that the agency has ushered the process along since its inception but has not kept empirical records to measure performance and costs.

October 03, 2008

In the biggest securities fraud settlement ever reached, Enron shareholders will split $7.2 billion. The deal is part of a $40 billion lawsuit filed against investment banking giants such as Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase alleging that they abetted a fraudulent accounting scheme that helped drive down the one-time seventh largest corporation in the nation.

The distribution plan, announced in mid-September, caps off what had been the go-go era of the late 1990s. During that time span, a multitude of corporate scams transpired including one involving Worldcom, which had represented the biggest corporate securities litigation settlement at $6.1 billion. In the Enron case, $6.6 billion will go to investors and the rest to attorneys.

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency David Rodgers recently announced the launch of DOE’s Zero-Net Energy Commercial Building Initiative (CBI) with establishment of the National Laboratory Collaborative on Building Technologies Collaborative (NLCBT). These two efforts both focus on DOE’s ongoing efforts to develop marketable Zero-Net Energy Commercial Buildings, buildings that use cutting-edge efficiency technologies and on-site renewable energy generation to offset their energy use from the electricity grid by 2025. The announcement was made at the California Clean Tech Open, a competition that supports innovative and sustainable new businesses which focus on energy efficiency, smart power, renewable energy, transportation, green building technologies, pollution control and resource management. DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will help sponsor the 2008 California Clean Tech Open, a business plan competition that supports the development of clean technology companies.