WASHINGTON — Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday he’s ready to push out some of the billions of dollars from the economic-recovery plan within a couple of months, with money for projects to build and improve power lines and help for low-income families to cut energy use.
Chu briefly answered reporters’ questions after an appearance before a meeting of state utility regulators.
He promised approval of some loan guarantees and other action by April.
Later, during a conference call with reporters, Chu said the department was looking to pump money into electricity- transmission projects that already have gone through lengthy environmental reviews.
“There are many places where these projects are ready,” Chu said.
The Energy Department will manage $39 billion in grants, tax breaks and loan guarantees under the stimulus package, much of it to boost renewable-energy and conservation programs.
Chu said he will speed up processing energy-project loan guarantees that have languished at the Energy Department for nearly three years — much of it intended for support to the nuclear industry — and quickly begin work on $6 billion in new loan guarantees aimed at helping fledgling renewable-energy industries.
Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, was greeted warmly by those at the meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
He spent most of his remarks discussing the need to build more power-transmission lines to move energy from isolated wind farms to urban centers and the need for a “smart” grid to improve transmission efficiency.
