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Obama admin takes credit for Bush wind-farm and tens of thous other jobs

President Obama can’t stop blaming President Bush for everything under the sun (“I inherited a deficit….” and “I inherited two wars…” ad nauseam).  But when it comes to giving him credit where credit is due, he can’t start.  In fact his administration appear to be quite willing to downright lie about it. 

White House takes credit for Bush-era wind farms
Administration claims 50,000 jobs created, but many projects were completed before funds were handed out

By Russ Choma
Investigative Reporting Workshop, American University

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.

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.

In testimony to Congress earlier this year, the Department of Energy’s senior adviser on the stimulus plan, Matt Rogers, touted the wind farm program for creating as many as 50,000 jobs. He acknowledges that these figures were provided by a wind industry trade and lobbying group. The trade group, in turn, cites a government study, which found that most of the jobs are short term.

The Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University fact-checked that claim, using the federal government’s own documents. Not only were 19 of the wind farms already in place before the first stimulus payments were made, but 14 of them were already sending electricity to the grid.

 

 

Joel Johannesen
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