$750,000: Say What?

via Y'all Politics:

Universities land federal grant to pursue energy efficiency

Thanks to a grant from the United States Department of Energy, three public universities in Mississippi will be sharing funding to support energy efficient facility improvements in order to cut energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020.

An announcement came Wednesday at three succeeding press conferences in Oxford, Starkville and Columbus.

In addition to grant funding, the Tennessee Valley Authority will commit $150,000 to each of the three universities - Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women and the University of Mississippi - over three years.

Part of the Department of Energy's $7.9 million investment to reduce energy costs across 13 states, Mississippi's $725,000 State Energy Program grant was the largest amount awarded to any state in the Advancing Energy Efficiency in Public Buildings category according to Karen Bishop, director of the Mississippi Development Authority's Energy and Natural Resources Division.

Commercial Dispatch
7/26/12

From the full Commercial Dispatch article:

"This award will create a path ... to implement energy management strategies in the state in a creation of a retrofit strategy for all state universities," [Karen Bishop, director of the Mississippi Development Authority's Energy and Natural Resources Division] said.

Say what?