Alarm bells are sounding at the Department of Energy as the Biden administration has moved to triple the budget for the Weatherization Assistance Program, which provides low-income applicants with free home and apartment renovations, such as insulation, duct-sealing, new heating systems, and kitchen appliances. The last time the program was lavished with such a surge in funds, through President Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill, audits and investigations uncovered a pattern of fraud, embezzlement, shoddy work, inflated expenses for parts and materials, sketchy billing, kickbacks, and gimcrack construction.
In a private meeting in February, the department’s inspector general, Teri L. Donaldson, warned Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm that the enormous new budget for the program—slated to grow to $1 billion a year from $315 million—threatens to overwhelm the department’s ability to protect taxpayers’ money. In April, the inspector general made that warning public with a memo to Secretary Granholm cataloging the risks to the money being entrusted to the Department of Energy. Donaldson identified a history of problems with the program, noting that “few administrative remedies such as suspensions and debarments were made for the multitude of problems that occurred and were identified.”
