Citizens' Daily Lobby

InArkansas has a nice report this week tracking the green portion of Arkansas’ stimulus money.   Arkansas received $110 million for energy projects last year.  Here’s a rough breakdown of the major recipients of this money and what it will do for the state:

Arkansas Department of Human Services $48.1 million to help low-income families become more energy efficient.  Low-income individuals often live in the least efficient homes, and they pay a disproportionate amount of their income for energy needs. The stimulus funds are expected to help weatherize 6,500 homes by 2012.

Arkansas Energy Office: $39.4 million to fund 13 environmental energy projects.  Most of the money will be used for energy efficiency improvements in public and private buildings.

Local goverments:  $16 million for various projects, largely for energy efficiency.  Kudos to Conway, for its plan to implement a synchronized traffic light system that will save gas, time, and frustration for local motorists.

This doesn’t quite total $110 million.  A table would have been helpful in the article.   I’m sure I could find the missing $7 million in the article if I took the time to sort through all the figures.

THV is reporting that another manufacturer of turbines for wind-power is moving into Arkansas.  Mitsubishi Power Systems America, Inc. will move into a new 200,000 sq foot facility in Fort Smith.  The company plans to bring up to 400 jobs.  Construction will begin in early 2011.

Arkansas is welcoming green jobs, but our Congressional contingent is still hedging on climate change legislation.  They want to have their cake and eat it too, maybe.  When you contact Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor, or your Representative, use the growing wind-energy manufacturing industry in our state as an example of how climate change legislation will help create green-energy jobs in Arkansas.