By Stephen Power

WASHINGTON — Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Friday that he
wants half of the roughly $35 billion to $40 billion proposed
for Energy Department programs in the economic-stimulus package
to be spent within a year.

Mr. Chu said he is prepared to overhaul the way the agency operates to quickly direct the money to projects including weatherization, energy efficiency and support for renewable energy.

“We’ve got to do this, and we’ve got to do it in a way that has not been done at the Department of Energy,” Mr. Chu said. “I think this is solvable.”

Mr. Chu is already facing pressure from some lawmakers to set a timeline for dispersing a separate $25 billion of loans from an Energy Department program for the automobile industry. In an interview, Mr. Chu said, “We can probably get a timeline out in a week or two. We’re trying to understand, why the heck did it take so long before?”

Mr. Chu’s comments highlight a fundamental challenge for President Barack Obama’s effort to transform and revive the U.S. economy. To carry out that change, he is relying on a government bureaucracy that can be slow-moving, inefficient and bound by multiple missions and red tape.

Mr. Chu, a physicist who previously led the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said he is confident obstacles hindering the delivery of federal money can be eliminated. He dismissed concerns that implementing the legislation could distract the agency from its traditional duties.

The Energy Department has had a fairly limited role in developing breakthrough technologies. Most of its $25 billion budget is concentrated in maintaining the nation’s nuclear stockpile, cleaning up former weapons plants and doing basic scientific research.

That balance would change under the economic-recovery legislation moving through Congress.

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source: Wall Street Journal