As the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act approaches its 15-month mark, the Dept. of Energy has committed 99% of its ARRA funds that are designated for grants and contracts, a senior DOE official says.

In a  May 5 Webinar, Matt Rogers, DOE senior advisor for recovery act implementation, said that the department has selected recipients for $32.4 billion of the $32.7 billion ARRA provided in grant and contract authority.

Rogers said, "I always joke, my popularity continues to decline because there's only $300 million in grant authority left under the program."

Of the $32.4 billion, DOE has obligated $27.9 billion for projects in place. "So the vast majority of it is in the marketplace," Rogers said.

Still to be awarded, he said, are some  Advance Research Project for Energy funds, grants under "a small buildings program," and some loan authority.

Rogers notes that all the grants must be obligated by Sept. 30, "and we are well on track to do that."

He adds that the loan authority is to be spent by Sept. 30, 2011.

Recipients of DOE stimulus grants have other deadlines by which they must actually spend the money, Rogers said.

In all, DOE received $36.7 billion under the stimulus act, of which $32.5 billion is "spoken for," Rogers said.

Twitter