President Obama’s economic-stimulus package is another campaign promise likely to become a fiscal pipedream – giving a setback to renewable-energy investors. The touted infrastructure build-out intended to create new green industries that was part of the Obama plan could now be the first casualty of close scrutiny in the corridors of power, both on Capitol Hill and Main Street.

For the past few months, we’ve cautioned investors from buying into the hype that Obama’s green revolution would provide a new path to Easy Street for investors. Now an article in today’s Wall Street Journal reports that Obama’s $825 billion economic-recovery package “may not provide as big a near-term lift for the economy as expected.”

While this poses major obstacles for investors who bought in early on the hype to invest in raw materials such as steel and cement, the implications are even darker for America’s fledgling renewable energy sector.

On the campaign trail, Obama vowed to invest $150 billion over the next 10 years on renewable energy — giving rise to an entire new sector that would create thousands of jobs.

But it looks like Obama’s stimulus plan is more sizzle than steak for individual investors and the legion of unemployed.

The Journal says that nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected less than half of the $355 billion that House Democrats want to spend on highways, bridges and other job-creating investments is likely to be used before the end of fiscal 2010. What that means is that the balance would be spent after the recession is expected to end.

Republicans said the analysis shows that the package, which Democratic leaders drew up with top Obama aides to boost the ailing economy, wouldn’t create the promised jobs, according to the Journal. “Clearly, we’re not talking about a stimulus bill,” said Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the second-ranking House Republican, in the article.

In fact, upon close scrutiny, most of the stimulus package would initially go toward jobless benefits, health care for the poor and middle-class tax cuts.

The bill originally gave states 90 days to spend money on infrastructure projects or risk losing the funds. But in a new report the CBO study concluded that states couldn’t act that fast. Democrats replaced that provision with one that would award states a bonus if they spend the money within 120 days.

Even if the states could pull together plans that would accommodate 120-day limit, the renewable energy projects that would be part of these packages could easily get tied up in court for years to come.

As we’ve said before, the problem with this bill to construct a green industry fails to take into account that the very people who proclaim allegiance to green are also the same people who could fight solar arrays, wind farms and energy superhighways on the grounds of environmental damage.

Endangered species, protected waterways and national parks are all potential battlegrounds for green vs. green in courtrooms across America. This is where federal mandates clash with local sentiment on setting both national and regional priorities from investments in renewable energy.

All of this is additional bad news for headline investors making a grab for that pot of gold at the end of the renewable energy rainbow. President Obama talks about a new transparency in government, and now we can see through his campaign promises to make everyone rich with green.