Posts Tagged ‘Coverage’

Get Paid To Listen To Me Talk About Reporting On Green Issues

April 16th, 2010

Covering The Green Economy June 28-30

Seriously. The good people at the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism have asked me to come out to their place at the Walter Cronkite School at ASU to speak at a the “Covering the Green Economy” Seminar on June 28.

I’ll be talking about green energy and stimulus and the challenges of covering the biggest piece of pro-green legislation. I’m up first thing Monday morning, but the conference goes for two more days and they’re lining up a stellar cast of journalists to speak.

While there are lots of seminars and conferences for journalists, the Reynolds Center is putting this one together armed with a very generous grant and will be awarding all-expense paid fellowships to 20 local journalists. The intention is to send them back home with, “ information to help them recognize ‘greenwashing,’ track federal stimulus dollars designed to create green jobs and answer consumers’ most frequently asked questions about leading environmentally sustainable lives.”

Since I’ve started writing about green issues I’ve been shocked at how reporters (even at the highest levels of journalism) miss the boat on key issues. I’ve talked to a lot of other reporters and I’d say 90 percent of the time it’s not their fault if they don’t get it right – there’s an overwhelming combination of hype, scientific information and complexity involved in many green stories. Sorting out the truth – what really is working and what isn’t – and discerning the motives of the people who deluge your inbox with pro and anti press releases, isn’t easy.

I certainly don’t have all the answers but I’ve hit a fair number of brick walls and I’m happy to share my experiences – and the various story ideas that people email me on a fairly regular basis that I just don’t have the time or outlet to chase after.

More info on how to apply for a fellowship can be found at the Reynolds Center Web site.

how a combination of deluge of press releases in the average reporter’s inbox and general hype that swirls around

and there’s still time to apply for a fellowship to attend.

The

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Legislating “Blown Away” Away

March 4th, 2010

On March 3, Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Bob Casey sponsored an amendment to the stimulus – which they’ve dubbed the “American Renewable Energy Jobs Act” – in direct response to the investigative report “Blown Away” that I wrote for the Investigative Reporting Workshop.

The legislation – and a request that the administration impose a moratorium on all new Section 1603 renewable energy grants until the legislation is passed – have caused a certain amount of consternation among some of the lobbying groups affiliated with the industry. (Interestingly, the labor groups that would stand to gain workers, and who do their own fair share of lobbying, are mostly lining up behind Schumer.)

So what does the legislation say? It has three main points:

1.) Discretion: The way Section 1603 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is currently written, there is no discretion when it comes to granting money. The text of the current law(pdf) is actually quite simple – if you built a renewable energy facility within a certain time frame, and you can prove that to the Department of Energy, the Treasury will cut you a check for 30 percent of your legitimate costs. Within seven days of being awarded a grant, the money is deposited in your account – no matter who you are or what you plan to do with it.

So, if you submit an application and you spell your name right – you get the money. The government has no choice.

The proposed amendment changes the words, “Upon application, the Secretary of the Treasury shall,” to: “Upon application, the Secretary of Treasury may…”  In theory, that one-word change would mean filling out the application correctly doesn’t guarantee a grant – if the Treasury thinks there is a good reason to stop the grant, they’d have the power.

2.) “Buy American”: One of the most common questions I get about my article is: “What about ‘Buy American’? Doesn’t that apply?” The answer is, no. The stimulus bill’s “Buy American” package requires the iron, steel and manufactured parts in a project be American-made, but applies to public works projects. These grants are actually fairly complicated financial mechanisms that are being granted in lieu of tax credits – they are in a totally different realm. And to be fair, that’s not because of a loophole written into this law – “Buy American” provisions existed in federal legislation long before the stimulus and programs like this one were exempt before.

Schumer’s proposed amendment would alter that.

The American Wind Energy Association, an industry lobbying group supported by many of the foreign companies we named in our report, has raised a concern that requiring turbines purchased with grant money through this program be 100 percent American-made would kill the industry and put as many as 50,000 out of work. If only the “Buy American” provision were that airtight. It’s not a secret that the “Buy American” provision as it exists in the ARRA is defanged – it can be sidestepped if the head of the federal agency in charge of the program determines buying American would:

  • “inconsistent with the public interest.”
  • the iron, steel or manufactured materials are, “not produced in the United States in sufficient and reasonably available quantities and of a satisfactory quality.”
  • Or, “inclusion of iron, steel, and manufactured goods pro- duced in the United States will increase the cost of the overall project by more than 25 percent.”

So, basically, if you have a really good reason why it would hurt America to buy American… or if you can’t find the product you’re looking for here in America… or it would cost a lot… you don’t have to. And agency heads have been granting waivers of the “Buy American” provisions with relative ease and quite broadly. But, when they do, they’re required to post a notice in the Federal Register.

The reality is “Buy American” doesn’t impose draconian restrictions, but it does require notification and some light explaining if you choose to sidestep it. (The full text of the ARRA’s “Buy American” provision.)

3.) Accountability: Beyond the relatively light level of accountability that would come with a “Buy American” provision, Schumer’s legislation would also require the Treasury to do some job count math before issuing a check. Instead of just checking off that the applicant has a renewable energy facility built in the appropriate time frame, the government would have to count the jobs preserved or created domestically. As I understand it from reading the proposed legislation, the result of this analysis wouldn’t alter an applicant’s ability to get money, but it would require the person signing the check to be aware of where the jobs are being created. And then report back to Congress on those numbers.

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Blown Away on America’s Work Force Radio Today at 4 p.m.

February 26th, 2010

I will be a guest on Cleveland’s America’s Work Force Radio this afternoon at 4 p.m. chatting with host Ed “Flash” Ferenc about my latest investigative piece, “Blown Away.”

AWF Radio is a drive-time daily talk radio show focusing on issues important to labor, so I’ll be talking about what stimulus dollars for green energy going overseas means for U.S. manufacturing and what role Congress plays on the issue. I was on the show once before to talk about the first article I wrote on the subject – you can listen to that interview here.

Listen to today’s show on 1490AM if you’re in the Cleveland area, or tune in on the Web at AWF Radio’s Web site.

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More “Blown Away” On The Radio

January 2nd, 2010

As we get closer to releasing a new story on where stimulus dollars are really being spent – and why they’re going where they’re going – my original story on how 84 percent of stimulus dollars for green energy are going overseas, continues to receive a lot of media attention.

Last month I taped an interview with California-based radio show “Making Contact” for their year-end review. They were asking the good question – is the “greening of America” a new deal for everyone? While there is evidence that other areas of the stimulus are creating (or saving) jobs, the grant programs that have been the focus of my reporting have not. To hear me talk in more detail, their show is running on their national network of stations all this week. You can find a station near you here, or you can listen to their whole show online and read about their other guests and year-in-review topics by clicking here (my interview is at the 22:30 mark.)

I also got a chance to talk with Sarah Gardner, a reporter for American Public Media’s Marketplace radio program. Her piece aired Dec. 23 on most NPR stations – I wasn’t included in the on-air segment but she really hit the story from all angles. I really recommend checking out the piece here.

Finally, keep checking back – my next piece will likely roll out the second week of January. We have several media partners on this project – it should get good coverage on the national level – and we’re still piecing together the strategy for a coordinated release. When we know a firm release date, I’ll post it here.

Thanks for reading, and have a happy New Year!

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CNN Explores “Blown Away”

December 4th, 2009

Plans for a followup to “Blown Away” are moving along nicely – I just got hold  of some great new data and I expect to do some interviews in the next few days. This time it looks like we’ll be getting some help from the Watchdog Institute out in San Diego and hopefully we’ll be lining up a media partner soon (have a media organization? Want to get involved? Email me!)

Hopefully we’ll be able to get the followup out while people are still talking about the issue. So far, it’s been the story that keeps on running, and I can’t take credit for that – there’s been a lot of good reporting by people following up on my initial report. Tonight, the project got one of its biggest boosts yet…

Just about a month ago I taped an interview with CNN reporter Ines Ferre – a snippet of that interview finally aired tonight during a segment Ferre put together for CNN Tonight.

Check out the piece and stay tuned for the followup, coming soon…

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For the Record

November 9th, 2009
Image by Flickr user Green4All

Image by Flickr user Green4All

So, it’s nice to see my story on foreign companies collecting stimulus dollars for wind energy getting attention on both sides of the issue/political spectrum. Both sides take some of the facts raised by my story and other coverage of the Chinese turbine deal and make some good points. Both don’t quite get everything right.

IER

On the one hand, you have the Institute for Energy Research, a decidely anti-wind group, that published their own report, at least partially based on my story. IER’s report not only looks at my investigation into wind, but adds their own information about solar energy, and generally concludes:

“The real problems are a government “stimulus” plan and efforts to centrally plan a “green economy.” The government can only “stimulate” by spending money that it has first taxed or borrowed from the private sector. It would be bad enough for the government to destroy jobs in American fossil fuel industry while spending money on domestic producers of “green energy.” But it is particularly absurd for the U.S. government to cripple American industry while shoveling the lion’s share of the pork into the hands of foreign beneficiaries.”

So, they’re not fans of the stimulus program at all. But, there are some clarifications that need to be made to their report.

“The Investigative Reporting Workshop found that 67 percent of the wind turbines installed in the U.S. are built by other countries”

No. We reported that of the turbines currently under construction 67 percent are slated to be purchased from a foreign-owned turbine manufacturer. (Update: 11/11/2009: IER updated their report with a corrected use of my numbers.)

The American Wind Energy Association maintains a comprehensive list of wind farms in the U.S. dating back as long as anyone has kept substantial records. With the boom-and-bust-and-takeover-and-merge path of a U.S. wind industry it’s tough to track exactly how many turbines are made in the U.S. and how many arent – there are too many companies that have come and gone.

If anyone is dying to know, contact me, I’ve got the spreadsheets, but haven’t taken the time to clean up all the historical data. It can be done. Or you can check the AWEA’s Web site and make your own spreadsheet.

AWEA

On the other end of the spectrum, the American Wind Energy Association, the chief lobbyist and cheerleader for wind power in the United States, which has issued two general debunkings of the uproar over Chinese turbines coming to Texas and U.S. stimulus dollars going overseas. In their first blog post they attempt to “shine some light” on the Chinese turbine deal. And the second blog post defines a “disconnect” between Washington and Detroit, where the AWEA recently hosted a supply chain conference to try and encourage the development of a U.S. supply chain.(They apparently also told FOX News that the Workshop’s findings were “exaggerated.”)

Like the IER report, there are things that the AWEA hits right on the head, and some other things that miss some key facts that I reported.

“Second, it is not part of a trend. In fact, more turbine parts are being made in the United States than ever. AWEA announced earlier this year that 55 new manufacturing plants were opened, announced, or expanded last year. The U.S. has been rapidly increasing wind manufacturing from less than 25% of turbine value a few years ago to nearly 50% today.”

We found that it (the Chinese turbine deal) is indeed part of a trend.

There has definitely been an increase in manufacturing capacity in the United States, but there has also been an increasing trend in turbines and turbine components coming from abroad. Six years ago there were no Indian-made turbines in the U.S., but so far this year Suzlon, the big Indian turbine manufacturer, has installed 12.9 percent of the turbines in the U.S. It is true that the share of turbines and turbine components made by U.S.-owned manufacturers has increased, but the figures have dropped since 2008, according to my research. Only about 44 percent of turbines installed so far this year were made by an American-owned manufacturer, and of the wind farms that are under construction, only 32.7 percent are slated to be made by an American-owned manufacturer.

A number of foreign-owned manufacturers are hoping to set up shop in the U.S. (as far as I can tell, the only foreign company that builds a turbine, tower and nacelle in the U.S. is Gamesa.) Roby Roberts at Vestas Americas, the U.S. subsidiary of the Danish turbine giant, told me his company plans to have a fully-American made wind turbine by 2011 – but for now they’re importing many of the parts and already manufactured turbines (see the photos attached to our report for evidence of Vestas turbines being hauled from the docks to a wind farm in Maine this summer.) Suzlon makes blades here. Mitsubishi and Siemens, among others, both plan to open something in the next two years.

It will be interesting to see which of these foreign owned manufacturers qualifies for the manufacturing tax credit – the process to acquire that credit is a lot more complicated than the investment tax credit that I found foreign companies were collecting so much of.

Without getting into the bigger issue – does it matter if a facillity is American or foreign-owned, as long as it creates jobs in the U.S. – there is a flip-side of the coin. At least some turbine manufacturing jobs are going overseas, or starting overseas. The only two significant U.S. turbine manufacturers rely on foreign manufacturing for at least some of their components. As I pointed out in my story, GE is in the process of opening a new component manufacturing facility in Vietnam.

“Fourth, the Treasury grants already issued as a result of the have had a significant impact. According to Denise Bode, AWEA’s CEO, “The Recovery Act is now a proven success putting people back to work building wind projects here in the U.S.”…”

Has it?

The money that’s been given out is for projects that were already brought online. All of them were significantly underway before the stimulus bill passed in February. Also, as I wrote about in my story, most of the jobs are created in the manufacturing of the components – and 695 of the 982 turbines that were installed on the 11 projects that recieved stimulus money were built by foreign manufacturers. We asked the administration about this point – first the White House, and then Treasury who we were referred to – and we recieved no response.

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Charles Schumer Intervenes

November 5th, 2009

Following a great New York Times article on the subject of Chinese wind turbines being used for a Texas windfarm that hoped to use stimulus dollars to build, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to the administration. The NYT article quoted me and Schumer’s letter cites me and my report. (Read Schumer’s letter here.)

Schumer has apparently said no hearings… yet. But he will consider filing legislation if stimulus money goes to this windfarm. Because the stimulus bill makes no provision for judging a project’s worthiness for cash on any basis other than it’s qualification as a renewable energy facility, I’m not sure President Obama can do anything about it if this farm’s backer files for it (Here, read the law yourself.) But, when Congress puts the final touches on climate legislation, our report will hopefully spark some serious conversation about where the U.S. clean energy industry is going.

Maybe it has already…

The American Wind Energy Association has issued a general defense of the use of foreign companies to help build the domestic wind market – and even spend stimulus dollars, if necessary. The real job creation will happen with the climate and energy bill that’s being debated, they said.

Also, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal today, Al Gore said he had not seen the letter, but was concerned about the issue. His general response: judging by what other countries have done subsidizing their own clean energy infustries – and the success they’ve had – it’s appropriate the United States does the same.

“The appropriate response in my view is to position the US to recapture the lead. Most of these technologies were invented in the United States … We need to wake up and make sure we lead this revolution,” he said.

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