Where are the White House’s Solar Panels?

Photo by TopTechWriter.US, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toptechwriter/44210696/sizes/m/in/photostream/">via Flickr</a>.

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Last fall, after a persistent campaign by enviros, the Obama administration agreed to install solar panels on the roof of the White House. In response to the request from 350.org, Energy Secretary Steven Chu promised that solar panels and a solar hot water heater would grace the roof of the First Family’s residence “by the end of this spring.” But today’s the first day of summer, and there’s still no solar.

350 wonders what exactly the hold-up is. “This was a no-brainer—the Republicans couldn’t filibuster it, the oil companies weren’t fighting it, and it still didn’t get done when they said it would,” said 350 founder Bill McKibben in a statement.

The administration responded Monday night, promising that the solar panels are still coming. Ramamoorthy Ramesh, director of solar energy technologies at the Department of Energy, wrote in a long blog post:

The Energy Department remains on the path to complete the White House solar demonstration project, in keeping with our commitment, and we look forward to sharing more information—including additional details on the timing of this project—after the competitive procurement process is completed.

In short: the fate of the White House’s solar panels is still cloudy.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

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