4/20: Get your appliance rebates - fast!

New York Times: Get your appliance rebates -- fast

Consumers across the country are snapping up rebates for energy-efficient appliances. In Florida, the $17.6 million allocated for the program lasted a day and a half, with more than 72,000 claims filed.

Each state has structured its own program, sometimes excluding certain appliances like air-conditioners or requiring proof that old appliances were recycled before paying out the cash.

Kateri Callahan, the president of the Alliance to Save Energy, a nonprofit coalition that promotes efficiency measures, praised the rebates as stimulating the economy while providing “an immediate, point-of-purchase incentive for consumers by ‘buying down’ the price of new, energy-efficient appliances.”

Also in the South:

ALABAMA: Editorial: Find PACT solution that will last

ARKANSAS: Non-married couples in state to be allowed to foster and adopt children

FLORIDA: House passes Medicaid measure, giving large HMOs more power than ever

GEORGIA: Hundreds of artists protest cutting of Georgia Council for the Arts at Capitol

KENTUCKY: State's Cash for Appliances program to begin Thursday

LOUISIANA: House kills bill suspending prisoners' government pension benefits

MISSISSIPPI: Judge's ruling on racial isolation in MS schools points to troubling trend

NORTH CAROLINA: Amazon files lawsuit to block NC's data request

SOUTH CAROLINA: Group says adjusting state's tax structure could return funding to schools

TENNESSEE: Most cuts to state's Medicaid program will likely be delayed for a year

VIRGINIA: Tea party influence could go two ways in Virginia

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