Declining government budgets and a flagging global economy will lead federal and state agencies to demand clearer results and more accountability from clean-energy developers that receive government funding, officials said Tuesday.
"The days of getting some government money and maybe hitting your milestones and maybe not, and maybe getting some more time and limping along, and sort of being successful and maybe not, or maybe you hit the jackpot, those days are over," said Sarah Bittleman, a senior adviser to US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
"And the days of accountability are here," she told the Global Cleantech 100 Summit in Washington, D.C.
USDA has provided loan guarantees for a number of biofuels projects, and supports other clean-energy projects through a number of programs. USDA and the departments of Energy and Defense earlier this year announced they would together provide $510 million to help the biofuels industry build or retrofit commercial-scale biorefineries to produce drop-in biofuel that can be used by the military in place of aviation fuel and diesel.
That program will require any company receiving government funding to produce biofuels at specifications that can be used by the military, and Bittleman pointed to it as an example of tying specific results to funding.
She also told the representatives of clean-tech companies at the conference that while the government is still looking to support business where it can to produce jobs and build new products, the demands of government may be more strict.
"We are looking for you to [do that] on a realistic time table, and we are looking for you to have realistic balance sheets, and we are looking for you to have actual goals," Bittleman said. "We love dreamers, but we prefer doers."
Malcolm Woolf, the director of Maryland's Energy Administration, echoed Bittleman's comments, saying that while all of the funding through the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act administered by the states has been obligated to specific projects, it can still be moved around if companies do not meet their milestones.
"I've been doing that for two years now, and I am certainly anticipating over the next six months, as folks are missing their milestones, I can either give them more time, I can redefine their milestones to redefine success, or you can shift that money to somebody else who can create jobs now," Woolf said.
DOE alone provided several billion dollars to the states for a variety of renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives under the Recovery Act.
