By Joseph B. White
(Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2010) Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Friday that an effort by Democratic lawmakers to block federal stimulus grants for energy projects that use foreign-made hardware could cost U.S. jobs. ”There are unintended consequences by just coming out and saying, Buy American,” Dr. Chu said. “I do not want a moratorium. We have 9-10% unemployment. You do not want to stop these projects if 2/3 [of the hardware] is American and 1/3 is foreign.” In remarks on the sidelines of the conference, Dr. Chu said he will “work with people in Congress to explain the subtleties” of the global wind-energy market. A group of Democratic senators earlier this week proposed legislation to block the Energy Department from using stimulus funds to subsidize wind-energy projects that use foreign-made turbines. One target is a proposed wind-energy project in Texas where the backers plan to use wind turbines made with Chinese components. The senators said in a statement that the clean-energy grant program has paid out more than $1 billion to foreign manufacturers. Click here to read more…