Earth Equity News

Democratic Senators Seek to Block Stimulus Funding Until Imported Products are Banned. By Frederic J. Frommer, AP, March 3, 2010. "A group of Democratic senators urged the Obama administration to suspend an economic stimulus program aimed at financing renewable energy, complaining that money is going to projects that are creating jobs in foreign countries. 'We can't jump-start our economy and pull ourselves out of this recession if we are putting Chinese workers ahead of American workers,' New York Sen. Chuck Schumer said at a news conference Wednesday. On Tuesday, Schumer and three other senators wrote to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to request a moratorium on the Recovery Act program. They asked that the moratorium remain in place until they can pass legislation mandating stimulus aid flow only to projects which preserve and create U.S. jobs. 'A critical Recovery Act priority is investment in the domestic renewable and clean energy industry, not investment in foreign manufacturers,' the senators wrote in the letter, obtained Tuesday by AP. The letter was also signed by Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Robert Casey of Pennsylvania and Jon Tester of Montana...

"Dan Leistikow, a spokesman at the Energy Department, which was copied in on the letter, said the program has helped put Americans to work, and said it funds only projects built in the U.S. He added that the Recovery Act has helped attract more than $10 billion of foreign investment into this country's wind industry, including new manufacturing plants. 'It's the opposite of outsourcing, and we should encourage -- not discourage -- those kinds of investments,' Leistikow said. While some of the grants go to foreign-owned companies, the administration argues that more than half the components, measured by their value, are built in this country and all the energy projects are installed in this country. The American Wind Energy Association, the trade group for the wind power industry, called the senators' idea misguided. 'This proposal would torpedo one of the most successful job creation efforts of the Recovery Act, which has already preserved half of the 85,000 American jobs in the U.S. wind industry,' the group's CEO, Denise Bode, said in a statement."