High Standards for Businesses Wanting in on Obama’s Green Stimulus

Businesses that want a piece of President-elect Obama’s green stimulus plan will have to jump a number of high hurdles in order to qualify. The Obama administration’s stimulus package is expected to range between $675 billion to $775 billion, and to get a piece of the pie, corporations will have to meet some strict criteria.

Projects will have to be green, ‘shovel ready’, short-term and job producing in order to qualify for funding. Obama’s team is interested in projects that will push America toward a greener, cleaner energy future while also producing economic benefits – and everyone from the nuclear power industry to Dow Chemical thinks they have projects that meet those standards.

From Business Week:

First, the projects must be “shovel-ready”—that is, ready to go immediately. “They told us that for business to get anything, we have to prove there’s a short-term job impact—within six months,” explains Brent Erickson, vice-president of the Biotechnology Industry Assn. (BIO), which is pushing for biofuels production incentives. But the projects can’t put Uncle Sam on the hook to spend money for more than a year or two. “They have to be temporary, not creating a permanent need for funding,” says Dow Chemical (DOW) lobbyist Peter Molinaro.

One proposal generating buzz predicts more than 7 million jobs from a $171 billion investment to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and homes. Commercial property owners would get short-term tax reductions, and homeowners could lower mortgage payments if they boosted their energy efficiency or amounts of renewable energy. Homeowners would get their interest rates cut to, say, 3% if they paid for home energy audits and enough insulation and other improvements to cut usage by 75%. “It gets people back to work in a way that’s extremely positive,” says Edward Mazria, founder of Architecture 2030, the Santa Fe (N.M.) research group that devised the plan.

The Obama team isn’t about to fall for any greenwashing attempts by corporations who just have dollar signs dancing in their minds. All claims made in relation to getting in on the stimulus package must be backed up with hard evidence. As a result, companies are hiring consulting firms to help them figure out just how many jobs they can create.

With so many green projects in the pipeline, 2009 is shaping up to be a promising year for sustainability. No doubt there will be a lot of bumps on the road, but we’re at least headed in the right direction.

Link [Business Week]

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