Austin waits on stimulus funds to cut electric costs and create jobs.

AUSTIN, Texas—Some myth-busting to begin with: Weatherization—an imposing term that brings to mind solar panels, torn-down walls, and smashed energy meters—isn't actually that impressive. It's really rather drab: a couple of guys with some hammers, a few glass panes, and an insulation truck full of what's essentially heat-trapping cotton candy. It's a small process that takes a small amount of time. And costs a small amount of money: between $1,500 and $1,800 for a 10 percent to 15 percent drop in energy bills. Which is why the government's throwing so much of the stimulus at it.

Case in point: On a 100-degree day here, Julian and Jesse, our story's star carpenters, are tucked inside a small house far from downtown. (I'd say it was sweltering out, but sweltering is the status quo in Texas. One-hundred degrees might as well be where you tare the thermometer.) The owners are inside, tending to the kitchen and a half-naked child who's running around in the hallway. The air conditioners are at full blast, and most of the lights are off. Julian shows how he sealed a broken window that had only a piece of cardboard between the outdoor heat and cool indoor air. Jesse eyes the insulator strip he just put on the front door. It's a narrow piece of rubber, painted a mute gray, the kind of thing you've seen a hundred times but never noticed. Before he installed the strip, you could still see outside even when the door was closed, which meant air was leaking. That means air conditioners have to work overtime—so the family's energy bill is going to be higher than it needs to be.

And for this family, that's another problem on top of a heap of financial woes. They're getting their house weatherized for free as part of a long-running state program to help the impoverished cut electric costs. Weatherization should, in theory, save the family 10 percent to 15 percent on their bill and consequently conserve a bit of the city's electric grid.

Which is why weatherization is a green bullet for public-policy types. In theory, everybody wins. The family gets to spend less money, which decreases its need for other social services, which saves the state money in the long run. And there's that whole environment thing that is in vogue these days. Weatherization is green without being too green—it doesn't demand the kind of massive societal change that electric cars, wind farms, and bike lanes do. It's an efficiency measure, making the best of the way things already are—every politician's dream.