U S Government Accountability Office

Recovery Act U S Government Accountability Office

"The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) provided $5 billion to the Department of Energy's (DOE) Weatherization Assistance Program to help low-income families by making long-term energy efficiency improvements to their homes. The Recovery Act requires GAO to conduct bimonthly reviews of how recipients such as state-level agencies use the act's funds. As part of this review, GAO examined if the act is achieving its stated purposes. The act also requires GAO to comment and report quarterly on estimates of jobs funded and counted as full-time equivalents (FTE), as reported by recipients of Recovery Act funds. GAO examined (1) the status and use of weatherization grant program funds under the Recovery Act; (2) the challenges, if any, that recipients faced in implementing the weatherization program under the Recovery Act; (3) the extent to which the weatherization program under the Recovery Act has achieved its energy and cost savings goals; and (4) the changes, if any, over time in the quality of FTE data reported by Recovery Act recipients, particularly by program recipients. GAO surveyed the 58 state-level grant recipients of the act's weatherization funds, reviewed DOE and recipient-reported data, and interviewed state and local agency officials. GAO makes no new recommendations in this report but provides the status of prior recommendations that remain open and not implemented from GAO's Recovery Act-mandated reports. DOE generally concurred with GAO's findings and provided clarifications, which were incorporated as appropriate. What GAO Found As of September 2011, the 58 state-level grant recipients were awarded approximately $4.75 billion from DOE to implement the Weatherization Assistance Program under the Recovery Act and reported spending about $3.46 billion (about 73 percent). DOE expects to meet or exceed its production target of 607,000 homes and spend most of the act's funds because some recipients have been able to exceed their pro..."