Energy Block Grants

Recently, GAO has done work on a variety of energy conservation programs, including the Low-Income Weatherization Program and the Department of Energy's (DOE) State Energy Conservation Program (SECP). Although the DOE program has significantly improved since late 1979, it is still hampered by a number of problems in the areas of program effectiveness, energy savings and priorities, and financial controls and monitoring. The number of homes weatherized by SECP has substantially increased since the last GAO review, but this number continues to be overstated. DOE has given local agencies more flexibility in weatherizing rental units and has been testing various techniques designed to obtain landlord support. However, rental units continue to receive insufficient emphasis in state and local programs. DOE has not developed a system that accurately measures energy savings or identifies the type of fuel saved. Procedures for selecting homes, considering both energy savings and the need to reach low-income people, have not been developed; thus, homes are still being selected without considering whether they will provide the greatest energy savings. A lack of monitoring has hampered DOE ability to ensure that financial management and reporting problems are identified and corrected. In reviewing SECP, GAO concluded that the 1980 energy savings goal would not be attained and noted that many state conservation measures were delayed or reduced in scope because of problems in establishing and administering the measures and overly ambitious, optimistic goals. The Administration's 1982 budget proposals would eliminate SECP and merge the Weatherization Program in the Department of Housing and Urban Development's block grant program. Under such a merger, GAO believes that weatherization could lose its identity and priority, be less available in rural areas, would not necessarily experience reduced costs and improved quality, and would likely have less funds available. GAO believes that changes can be made to the Schools and Hospitals Program to emphasize energy audits to ensure more institutions have an opportunity to benefit from such audits. GAO work has shown that the Energy Extension Service (EES), as implemented on a nationwide basis, was falling short of its intended purposes. Necessary changes to EES include encouraging consumers to obtain an onsite energy audit and assisting them in implementing measures recommended by such an audit.