Bureaucracy Has All Parties Regretting Federal Weatherization Program

If you lie down with government officials, you get up with ...

AUSTIN —  Viewed in one very particular way, carefully following the bureaucratic contours of a $327-million stimulus energy efficiency program, the weatherization of Brandi and Byron Hockaday's south Austin home is a success story.

Rules and guidelines were followed. Contractors and inspectors returned again and again to check the work. And when things weren't right Austin Energy made them right at its own expense. And none of it, or almost none of it, cost the Hockadays a dime.

And yet, after more than two years and more than $14,000 spent, no one involved, least of all the Hockadays, believes they should have gotten involved with the federal weatherization assistance program in the first place.