November 28, 2011

U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Representative,

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) recently introduced H.R. 3441, the Stop Green Initiative Abuse Act, which would end the Department of Energy (DOE)’s Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). On behalf of the more than one million members and supporters of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), I urge you to support this legislation.

The WAP, a program created as part of the Energy Conservation and Production Act of 1976, was funded in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act at an extravagant $5 billion, far more than the program’s historical annual funding level of around $250 million. Shortly after the stimulus package became law on February 17, 2009, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) pointed out that because of the WAP’s history of wasteful spending, tangled layers of bureaucracy, and lack of oversight, the stimulus money would not be spent effectively.

In December 2010, after reviewing the files for 444 homes that were weatherized through the WAP program, a Tennessee state audit revealed that there were deficiencies in more than half of projects, including poor or nonexistent documentation of the quality of the work and whether applicants met income eligibility requirements. The DOE Inspector General during 2010 and 2011 issued reports on the WAP in Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Virginia that documented widespread disarray, confusion, miscommunication, and excessive spending on contractors. Federal audits conducted during 2010 in Delaware discovered such rampant mismanagement of stimulus funds that the state suspended its weatherization program.

H.R. 3441 would save $2.1 billion over 10 years. The elimination of the WAP is among the recommendations highlighted in CAGW’s Prime Cuts, a compendium of 763 waste-cutting recommendations that would save taxpayers $350 billion in the first year and $2.2 trillion over five years. I strongly urge you to support Rep. Fleischmann’s legislation. All votes on H.R. 3441 will be among those considered in CCAGW’s 2011 Congressional Ratings.

Sincerely,

Tom Schatz
President, CCAGW