The minor savings to be won from killing a grant program that helps provide reasonably priced electricity in rural areas would not have been worth the major impact it would have had on the communities, like Kaua‘i, that desperately need
The minor savings to be won from killing a grant program that helps provide reasonably priced electricity in rural areas would not have been worth the major impact it would have had on the communities, like Kaua‘i, that desperately need such money.
Senate Democrats were right to break with Barack Obama in their vote this week to retain the Agriculture Department’s High Energy Cost Grant Program.
The $18 million program, which was on the president’s roster of 75 recommended cuts of so-called discretionary programs funded by Congress annually, is a drop in that $11.5 billion bucket. Axing this program would be like passing on an after-dinner mint after wolfing down a five-course meal. This effort to trim federal fat is largely symbolic.
Meanwhile, rural cooperatives like KIUC would be denied a valuable opportunity. We already have one of the highest effective energy rates in the nation — and we’re in the process of trying to up ours 10.5 percent — so we need all the help we can get to keep prices down.
Producing electricity in such an isolated place is expensive business — at least via the imported-oil-dependent way we do it now and will be doing it for the foreseeable future.
The High Energy Cost Grant Program has been utilized to help some, such as Navaho Nation homes, make the switch to clean, renewable energy. This is our stated goal and we could use a hand in achieving it.
The program specifically allows the funds to be used for “on-grid and off-grid renewable energy projects, energy efficiency and energy conservation projects,” according to www.usda.gov.
Kaua‘i Habitat for Humanity took advantage of the program in 2007, securing $215,880 for solar water heating systems and insulation for volunteer-built homes. We need more of this.
As part of its reason to justify the cut, the White House budget office says some $20 million worth of previously appropriated funds have yet to be spent.
Indeed, KIUC has applied twice for the grant money and was denied both times. The co-op plans to try again this year.
Instead of eliminating a program that could help us achieve greater energy sustainability and lower electric prices for users during such a touch economic time, we challenge the government to make those funds more readily accessible.
If the program requires participants to be paying almost triple the national average energy rate to qualify, why not reduce this threshold to double so more entities can tap into that money?
When we save money on our energy bills, we have more money to pump elsewhere into the economy. Consider this $18 million program, if utilized correctly, as a cheap economic stimulus with long-term results.
If places like Alaska, Indian reservations and remote islands in the Pacific had no need for financial assistance in improving and providing energy generation, transmission and distribution facilities — the stated intent of the program — we’d agree that the program should be killed. But the fact is this need is real.
Fortunately, our senators recognized this and kept the program alive. Now, we need our federal lawmakers to make it more accessible.
Approving the funds is only half the battle. Appropriating them leads to real help for real problems.
