I’ve been hearing and reading lately about how the Stimulus – or the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), if you prefer – isn’t working. People are up in arms about the lack of jobs that were promised, and understandably so; hey, no one likes a prolonged recession. And by the same token, the funds earmarked for energy initiatives and Smart Grid projects – nearly $4 billion of the $787 billion ARRA total – don’t seem to setting things on fire yet either.

By the time you read this we will have observed the fifth anniversary of the worst natural disaster in U.S. history – Hurricane Katrina. I guess you might say that we’re doing all right under the circumstances, but after watching helplessly as BP’s blown out Deepwater Horizon rig spewed millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico for over three months, we’re still a long way from being able to say that we’re okay.

But this isn’t going to be a column about hurricanes or oil spills. It’s a column about realities – the kind that most people don’t like to face. It’s about how things really work, not the way we’d like them to work in a perfect world. That said, let us hearken back to that early post-Katrina mindset, just a few months after Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and submerged New Orleans for weeks in the aftermath of catastrophic levy failures in and around the city. As the nation and the world was wracked by the scale and enormity of the damage, it became increasingly clear that the recovery would take years – and billions of dollars – to even begin to put things right.

It was at this point that the U.S. Congress “sprang” into action, announcing billions in recovery dollars. I remember thinking at the time how fortunate we were to live in a country where, despite our frequent and sometimes divisive differences at the local, state or regional level, we could still come together in a crisis for the common good. But rather than breathing a sigh of relief, this would prove to be the beginning of a long and painful lesson in the workings of bureaucracy – one of those nasty realities we’d much prefer to ignore.

When that initial funding – about $10 billion as I recall – was announced, I was quite optimistic that we would see a wave of unprecedented recovery projects sweep across the region in a matter of a few months and that we would soon be, if not entirely back on the road to prosperity, at least within walking distance. In fact, we were promised that very thing by politicians at virtually all levels of government, from the president to the governor to the mayor. They were all atwitter about how fast we would see this massive transformation take place. We were all ready to be dazzled.

So, we waited, and waited, and waited. Weeks turned into months, and quite unbelievably, months turned into years. “How can this be taking so long?” we all wanted to know. But strangely, no one could offer a credible answer.
Then, many months after the announcement of the funding was made with much fanfare, we were told that the funds were still stuck somewhere in the “system” and had still not made it past the state level. (This is a system?)
Without going into what amounts to a protracted story of government bureaucracy, inefficiency and ineptness, let it suffice to say that it was nearly THREE years before a substantial portion of that recovery funding was actually spendable. And despite being told almost daily by our government leaders and the press that the “billions” were just around the next corner, it has to this day – nearly five years later – failed to produce the wave of construction that was originally promised.

I’m not writing this just to whine about the way the Katrina recovery scenario has played out, but I do want to point out that as that tired cliché states: The wheels of progress DO turn slowly. Frankly, I don’t think most people realize just how slowly that can be where government and/or institutional bureaucracy is involved. Regardless of how well intentioned the individuals involved might be, things – especially really big things – take time to produce meaningful results.

And just because we don’t like things taking time in our mostly instantly gratified world, they just do; which brings me back to Smart Grid and Stimulus funding…

Naturally, we all want answers to why things aren’t moving faster, and we want them now! Keep that goal in mind as you read this quick chronology of the ARRA Smart Grid funding progress to date:

• FEB 2009: President Obama signs the ARRA (“Stimulus”) Bill into law
   
• OCT 2009: Obama announces $3.4 billion* in Smart Grid Investment Grants (SGIGs) to fund 25 large and 75 smaller projects to help build a smarter electric grid
   
• MAR 2010: Glendale Water & Power becomes the first city in the country to sign a Smart Grid Investment Grant contract. (Still no spendable funds, however.)
   
• May 2010: Glendale receives the first check from the Department of Energy (Note: This occurs 15 months after the ARRA passage; 7 months after the first funding announcements; and 2 months after Glendale’s contract signing – and it’s just the FIRST payment out of $3.4 billion!
  
  (*Ranging in size from $400,000 to $200 million (per award) and augmented by up to $8 billion in utility matching funds, these grants are intended to fund a vast array of Smart Grid projects and are expected to create “tens of thousands of jobs” includ-ing those associated with the deployment of some 18 million smart meters.)

Okay, so now it’s September. How long do you suppose it might take after a utility gets a check in hand – the paperwork necessary to be able to actually spend it notwithstanding – to move those funds into the economy, or more importantly, start creating new jobs? A month? Six months? Possibly even a year or more? Let’s be really optimistic and assume it takes just 60 days. That means that the Glendale money would be hitting the local econ-omy… yep, you’re correct, right about now – and remember, we’re being very optimistic here! (Reality bites, huh?)

Or, looking at it another way, let’s assume you got a “mere $200 million” poured into your local economy. Assuming that you don’t live in NY, LA or some other gigantic metro area, do you actually think it wouldn’t leave a mark? Next, multiply that $200 million by 60 (i.e., $4 billion in ARRA funding plus $8 billion in utility matching funds = $12 billion), and you’ll get an idea of how much money is being pumped into the economy – just for Smart Grid projects. Following this logic, you’ll need to multiply that $12 billion by 65 to get to the full $787 billion ARRA total.

So how much of THAT money do you suppose has actually been received and deployed so far? Hmm, this is like déjà vu – all over again! – Ed.

P.S. As we went to press, the evening news headline on New Orleans TV was that all BP Oil Spill claimants would need to completely re-submit their applications to the federal claims manager – to “help streamline” the process. I rest my case…