Big and fast. Mind-numbing sums. A demand to get dollars flowing, shovels in the ground, at speeds defying the very definition of “government work.” And for accountability, thousands of projects made Internet-visible through the new Web site.

In the battle against bad projects, bad practices or bureaucratic delay, governors and mayors know they’ll be on the hot spot to deliver a quality performance when dealing with the billions of dollars in the Obama administration stimulus projects.

Indeed, the president has warned mayors that if they don’t spend the stimulus funds wisely, he’d “call them out” and “put a stop” to projects. “The American people are watching,” Obama said. “They need this plan to work. They expect to see (their money) spent in its intended purposes without waste, without inefficiency, without fraud.”

But is all this accountability and public disclosure – as great as it sounds – enough to assure we get not just 2 or 3 million new jobs, but maximum long-term benefit from this massive stimulus bill?

Betting On The Future

The measure expends, for example, $61.1 billion for highway construction, transit, rail and housing assistance, most of it flowing through states and localities. But it also designates $50.8 billion for the “green,” energy-efficiency types of projects that Obama keeps pushing as keys to our future. There’s $6.3 billion, for example, in block grants to states for energy projects including weatherization, “green” schools and financing loan guarantees for such renewable energy projects as wind and solar power.

A key question: Will state and local governments see how critical these outlays could be for the country’s future?

Take the initial infrastructure wish lists from state transportation departments. Many were anything but “green,” favoring, for example, new and widened roads instead of repaving existing ones or fixing structurally deficient bridges.

But that’s the quandary. Road and bridge projects to service sprawling exurban development – a big new “Grand Parkway” loop the Texans want to build around Houston, for example – might pass every fiscal test, but still fail miserably on the energy side.

Governors and their staffs need to heed what President Obama himself told a town hall meeting in Florida earlier this month: “The days when we’re just building sprawl forever, those days are over.” The meaning’s clear: aim for more compact development.

And they should note there’s a new day dawning locally: that more than 900 mayors have signed the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, pledging their cities to reduce their carbon emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. It will be a goal tough to meet if sprawl continues to be subsidized.

What About The Small Guy?

Another test: Will stimulus-funded projects produce jobs for local businesses? Economist Michael Shuman argues that locally-owned firms spend more of their money close to home base. That’s opposed, he argues, to large outside-based corporations that “re-spend money willy-nilly across the planet, not targeted within a community, and therefore have weaker economic multipliers.” Yet there’s nothing in the stimulus bill, he contends, to favor small, locally-owned firms. “Green jobs,” he laments, may end up in giant firms like General Electric or Bechtel.

There’s surely a role for large firms with specialized knowledge in the vast array of projects the stimulus bill will finance. Not all “big” is automatically “bad.” But a role for local firms would match another Obama idea – that government should be “we,” not some distant “they.” It’s an approach (like community organizing) that emphasizes local networking and local enterprises to identify best possible results. Indeed, today’s Internet with its customization tools should be an ideal way to foster debate to identify the most job-rich, green local projects.

Hands-on assistance to make just that possible is now being offered by the non-profit ICLEI–Local Governments for Sustainability, an international group with U.S. headquarters in Oakland, Calif. ICLEI’s goal: to develop evidence – clear “metrics” – by which its 500-plus U.S. member cities and counties can gauge the actual savings in energy and carbon emissions of projects they launch. This would show whether any federal or state investment “yields real results.”

ICLEI offers a tangible list of “ready-to-go” clean energy projects. With $15 million, for example, El Paso, Texas, could provide clean energy retrofits at 53 facilities and 600 intersections, saving 11,300 tons of carbon emissions – and $1.7 million annually. Spokane, Wash., could reduce vehicle miles traveled by 91 million miles yearly, and reduce CO2 emissions by 58,000 tons a year, through “SmartRoutes” – an $11 million program to upgrade roads and trails to encourage bike and pedestrian travel.

Brilliant accounting and open records in distributing the federal stimulus funds are important. But they’re not enough. We need to be smart enough to target dollars so they not only create jobs for economic recovery in the short run, but also pay long-term dividends in energy savings, reduced carbon emissions, locally sensitive solutions, and strengthened American communities.