Maine's Earth Day celebrations got off to an early start today with the announcement by Vice President Joseph Biden that the state was one of the top five recipients of a $452 million federal stimulus grant to fund energy efficiency upgrades. Maine's $30 million dollar share will be used to establish a revolving loan fund to make buildings more energy efficient. State energy officials hope the money will create more green jobs, but one labor analyst says it may take more than a grant to do that.

The announcement of $30 million dollars in energy loan funds couldn't have arrived at a better time, according to David Farmer, a spokesman for the Baldacci administration. "It's very significant -- I don't think you can underestimate the signficance of it."

Farmer says the Recovery Act-funded program will allow Maine families to apply for loans that will cut their home heating bills by investments in better windows, doors and insulation. And as the state prepares to observe the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, Farmer says Mainers should be proud of the leadership the state has taken on energy conservation.

"Maine has been recognized on a number of occasions by the U.S. Department of Energy for the groundbreaking work that we're doing here on weatherization and energy efficiency," Farmer says. "From the work at MaineHouse to the Efficiency Maine Trust and Efficiency Maine at the Public Utilities Commission, Maine has implemented its own policies that have weatherized more homes, created new jobs and reduced fuel consumption."

The $30 million grant will establish the Maine Home Performance Fund. Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree says the program will allow homeowners to borrow money for energy efficiency improvements and then roll those loan payments into their property taxes. The loan stays with the home if it is sold.

Pingree says many homeowners hesitate to borrow money to make energy efficiency improvements because they don't know if they'll own the house long enough to recover their investment. By attaching the loan to the property, that won't be a concern.

John Brautigam, Energy Programs Director for Efficiency Maine, says efforts to implement the grant are underway. "We're going to set up the procedures and standards for participation," he says. "It's going to be through municipalities that are going to working with our office, and we're going to hope to do this as quickly as possible so people can take advantage of this before the next heating season, but it will take some time."

At the Maine Municipal Assoication, Geoff Herman says communities will have to pass ordinances to allow the loans to be rolled into property taxes. He says those efforts have been assisted by a bill passed earlier this year by the Maine Legislature and that communities are always looking for more ways to reduce energy consumption.

"As we're going out on the road now and talking to groups of municipal officials in various regional settings and we talk about this bill, there's quite a lot of interest expressed in it -- the nature of Maine's housing stock, the sort of inability to get what municipal folks feel is an adequate amount of resources into these types of programs," he says. "I mean, we'll note that the bond issue that just passed had a $12 million component for weatherization which got pulled out at the last minute."

While Bruatigam and Farmer expressed hopes that the state would also see an uptick in the expansion of so-called green jobs related to energy conservation, John Dorrer, director of the state's Center for Workforce Research for the state Department of Labor, says experience tends to indicate that it's the high cost of fuel, rather than the availability of energy programs, that spurs Mainers to weatherize.

At least that was what he saw when fuel prices spiked two years ago. "Once that price of home heating oil and gasoline dropped back down to $2.50, $2.70, $2.80, it caused people to sort of slow down in making those kinds of changes and innovations," he says. "So it just goes to show you how much the price of oil, gasoline, home heating oil, affects people's behavior, and that's going to have some impact, obviously, on the jobs numbers and on the demand for doing these kinds of activities."

Maine was targeted for the program because it has some of oldest housing units in the country and is situated in one of coldest climates.