Next Challenge on Stimulus: Spending All That Money

President Barack Obama plans to rely heavily on agencies like the Energy Department to approve contracts and issue loan guarantees and grants at a record clip in the $789 billion stimulus plan. But there are signs that parts of the federal bureaucracy will need an overhaul to handle the huge workload heading their way. An obscure Commerce Department office with a $19 million budget and fewer than 20 grant officers could end up in charge of $7 billion in grants to expand Internet access in rural areas. A Congressional Budget Office report said it could take eight years for those grants to be issued because the amount of money would "far exceed" the agency's traditional budget and require the deployment of technology that is "not widely available today."