To Qualify in the Obama Administration's Stimulus Package, Projects Must Be Green, Shovel-Ready, Short-Term, and Job-Producing:

Business Week, by John Carey, December 29, 2008

The Obama Administration's stimulus package, expected to range from $675 billion to $775 billion in scale, has all manner of corporate interests scrambling to show they can create jobs, especially green ones. However, projects meet strict criteria and all claims must be backed up by hard data. First, the projects must be "shovel-ready"—that is, ready to go immediately. Obama's team is most interested in projects that will speed America toward a greener, cleaner future, reducing both energy dependence and the emissions that cause global warming. One proposal by Architecture 2030 predicts more than 7 million jobs from a $171 billion investment to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and homes. Commercial property owners would get short-term tax reductions, and homeowners could lower mortgage payments if they boosted their energy efficiency or amounts of renewable energy. Homeowners would get their interest rates cut to, say, 3% if they paid for home energy audits and enough insulation and other improvements to cut usage by 75%.

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