WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is crediting its anti-recession stimulus plan with creating up to 50,000 jobs on dozens of wind farms, even though many of those wind farms were built before the stimulus money began to flow or even before President Barack Obama was inaugurated.
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Robert F. Bukaty / AP file The blades of a windmill blur as they catch the wind on Stetson Mountain near Stetson, Maine. The project by First Wind was eligible for $40 million in the 2009 stimulus program, although federal records show that its wind towers were up by July 2008. Should jobs at Stetson Mountain be counted among those created by the Obama economic stimulus? |
Out of 70 major wind farms that received the $4.4 billion in federal energy grants through the stimulus program, public records show that 11, which received a total of $600 million, erected their wind towers during the Bush administration. And a total of 19 wind farms, which received $1.3 billion, were built before any of the stimulus money was distributed. ( See a list of the projects here.)
Yet all the jobs at these wind farms are counted in the administration's figures for jobs created by the stimulus.