$2 Billion Home Energy Rebate Program Introduced in Congress

Bryan Howard
Legislative Director
U.S. Green Building Council

Yesterday, Representative David McKinley (WV) and Representative Peter Welch (VT) introduced bi-partisan legislation that would jumpstart and accelerate opportunities for energy upgrades in existing residences. The Home Owner Managing Energy Savings (HOMES) Act seeks to reward homeowners for reduced energy consumption as a result of a qualified home energy efficiency retrofit. Homeowners who show a 20 percent energy savings will receive a $2,000 rebate. For every 5 percent in additional energy savings, they can receive another $1,000 – up to a total of $8,000 or 50 percent of the project’s cost.

Rep. David McKinley (left) and Rep. Peter Welch (right)

Does this bill sounds familiar? It should. The HOMES Act repurposes a number of policy items included in Home Star Energy Retrofit Act, which passed the House with bipartisan support last Congress but was not able to make it through the Senate.

While Pundits Debate Green Jobs, We’re Busy Putting America Back to Work

Maggie Comstock
Associate, Policy
U.S. Green Building Council

Even though I live in D.C., I often wonder, “What is Congress even fighting over?” It seems like everyone else in the country is asking the same question. This is especially true when our elected officials endlessly debate “jobs.” Aren’t jobs universally supported? Why would anyone be against putting Americans back to work, especially in the industries we know we need to remain competitive? How can everything simultaneously “create millions of jobs” and still be a “job killer”?

Army to Congress: LEED Doesn’t Cost More

Note: This blog was cross-posted from BuildingGreen.com
 
The Army is still going for Gold and Platinum despite recent legislation calling a halt to LEED spending.

The federal government has been one of the biggest supporters of LEED certification in the last few years, with the General Services Administration (GSA) requiring basic LEED certification for all federal buildings starting in 2003 and then upping that requirement to LEED Gold in 2010.

The military has been on the cutting edge of green building from the beginning. The Navy adopted sustainable design principles before LEED even existed, as we reported way back in 1998. The Army embraced LEED in 2006 and recently began the much more radical work of moving all its installations to net-zero energy, water, and waste. As Katherine Hammack, assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy, and the environment, put it to EBN earlier this year, "Energy security is mission critical."

Fort Carson is piloting net-zero energy, water,
and waste--and expects to meet that target by 2020.

It doesn't cost more

We feared that might all change when we saw that the most recent military appropriations legislation requires explicit justification for any spending on LEED above the Silver level. What's worse, this decision pretends to be about money but appears to have been made over certified wood credits. (Watch this space for in-depth coverage of the "wood wars" in coming weeks.)

Hammack is having none of it. In a call with reporters yesterday, she reiterated the Army's commitment to net-zero and LEED and gave an update about some of the progress that's already been made. "We're finding it does not cost more to design and construct to LEED" standards, Hammack said.

Read the full article on BuildingGreen.com »

The House of Representatives Vote on Lighting Efficiency

Bryan Howard
Legislative Director
U.S. Green Building Council

UPDATE: The bill, which needed 2/3 to pass, failed.

UPDATE: Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issues statement, opposes H. R. 2417.

As early as Monday, the full House of Representatives is poised to consider H. R. 2417, the “Better Use of Light Bulbs (BULB) Act,” which seeks to roll back energy efficiency standards for light bulbs. The bill, which was introduced by Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX), seeks to repeal standards that became law in 2007 as part of the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) while preempting states from setting lighting efficiency standards.

This bill, which due to procedural requirements needs two-thirds support in the House to advance, has been universally panned by consumer groups, advocacy organizations, and industry for a number of reasons.

First, a repeal of this kind would increase energy use. In testimony to Congress earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) went on record opposing such legislation and noted that eliminating these standards would increase energy consumption by 21 quads over the next 30 years. The U.S. uses about 100 quads of energy in a year, so this needless increase would be a staggering waste of money and increase in air pollution and its associated impacts, like childhood asthma. Such a move seems especially unwise considering that energy supplies are volatile enough to have warranted the release of 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve last month.

Second, the bill would cost consumers more money. According to analysis from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE), utilizing these new lighting standards would save individual consumers annually over $85 a year, or over $12.5 billion nationwide. Raising cost to consumers would come at a time when the unemployment rate is still hovering at 9 percent.

Third, it would negate the investment in efficiency that industry has already made, therefore putting them at a competitive disadvantage to foreign manufacturing. Sylvania, for instance, has made significant investments to upgrade a facility in Pennsylvania to make new efficient lighting. Cree, a LED lighting company, has grown from a small group of engineers to about 5,000 employees to meet growing demand for their products.

A bill that would increase energy use, add costs to consumers, and threaten American competiveness sounds like an idea that Congress should reject.

View the bill »

USGBC Urges Restored Funding for Critical Data Program

Bryan Howard
Legislative Director
U.S. Green Building Council

Today USBGC along with more than 70 organizations, companies and advocacy organizations sent a letter to the Senate and House Appropriations Committees urging that Congress restore funding for the Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS), a national survey that gathers statistical information on U.S. commercial buildings, at the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The letter was drafted and circulated by USGBC, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Real Estate Roundtable (RER) and members of the Real Estate Network for Energy and Climate Policy (RENECP), a network of professionals who support comprehensive clean energy and climate policies that advance building and location efficiency.

CBECS, a little known acronym outside of the building industry, has a huge impact on the real estate community as it is the data backbone of important programs such as LEED for Existing Buildings and ENERGY STAR. The recent budget compromise brokered by Congress and the White House cut EIA's funding by 14 percent. Because of the size and the timing of the budget cut EIA chose to suspend its work on CBECS for 2011.

Signatories of the letter, representing a diverse group of national buildings organizations, commercial real estate owners, architecture firms and advocacy organizations, urged that funding be restored to CBECS to ensure that chances to increase efficiency in commercial buildings are not squandered due to lack of meaningful comparative data.

“Opportunities to increase building efficiency and upgrade our building stock will be missed in the absence of more current and reliable CBECS data. Further delay in collecting and publishing new data will diminish the efficacy and reliability of energy benchmarking systems that depend on CBECS.”

The committees of jurisdiction are expected to consider funding for EIA in the coming weeks.

Get more information on RENECP »
Read the full letter »
Read the EIA press release »

Final Budget Deal is Still Thin on Important Funding for Green Building

Bryan Howard
Legislative Director
U.S. Green Building Council

Late last week, in an effort to avoid the first shutdown of the federal government in 16 years, the Obama administration and Congress agreed on a framework to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year 2011 (FY11). The broader details of the legislation (scheduled for a vote later this week) have only recently been released.

The bill contains broad spending reductions in virtually every government agency and enterprise. In total, the Continuing Resolution (CR) cuts $38.5 billion compared to the funding from 2010. Some reductions are particularly severe, including those in the area of green building, and should concern green building consumers and advocates. Below is a brief list of these cuts:

Federal Building Fund at the General Services Administration (GSA)

• Cuts: Funding reduced by $1.6 billion below FY2010 levels. The CR provides $82 million for construction and $280 million for repair of federal buildings overall.


• Damage: While this gives GSA some flexibility to continue multi-year construction and renovation projects, funding reductions of nearly 20% will have a dire effect on private sector construction and will impede the ability of the federal government to improve efficiency in their buildings.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the Department of Energy (EERE)

• Cuts: Funding reduced by $408 million below FY2010 levels, with $1.835 billion allocated in total.


• Damage: As home of the Building Technologies Program (BTP), these cuts to the EERE could harm the development of technologies and practices that make buildings, systems and components more efficient, and less costly to consumers.

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

• Cuts: Funding reduced by over $150 million below FY 2010 levels for the HOPE VI program, with only $100 million allocated in total.


• Damage: Cuts to this program will limit the ability to leverage private sector finance to transform existing distressed or blighted public housing into vibrant and livable communities.

Sustainable Communities Initiative

• Cuts: Funding reduced by $50 million below FY 2010 levels, with $100 million allocated in total.


• Damage: This office supports a joint initiative with the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and provides grants to communities to better integrate transportation, land use and housing efforts. A 33% reduction will impact these programmatic improvements substantially.

A full summary of the bill is located here.

These cuts are by and large an improvement over the House of Representatives proposal (H.R. 1), but the effect that they will have on private sector construction is nonetheless chilling: limiting private sector investment in infrastructure and building improvements and hampering future innovation in the building industry won’t do much to create jobs, save energy and save money, the very things that we need the most.

Congressional Outlook Uncertain, but Executive Branch Opportunity Abounds

Lane Burt
Technical Policy Director
U.S. Green Building Council

There has been a whole lot of negative talk about the prospects for energy, climate or other significant legislation coming out of our newly divided Congress, and that is not the best news for the green building industry. However, this does not imply that green building advocates should pack up and go home – in fact, it means quite the contrary. It turns out that a renewed focus on utilizing the legal authority already granted to federal agencies by Congress could reap huge benefits for architects, engineers, builders, developers, manufacturers and others involved in the green building process.

The shocking size and scope of the United State’s potential energy and water savings were highlighted by a 2010 study on existing authorities held by the executive branch to push efficiency in commercial and multifamily buildings. USGBC commissioned this study with a diverse group of building sector organizations (e.g., the Natural Resources Defense Council, Real Estate Roundtable, and Building Owners and Managers Association).

The findings of this report were clear. There is something, and usually something very impactful, that nearly every agency can do to improve the public and private building stock. The more digging we did into the existing authorities, the more opportunities we discovered to “stoke the fire” of the building industry and its sustainable potential. I wrote about the highlights of the report when it was released, and the opportunities I noted then remain before us—still knocking—today.

In many ways, the sheer quantity of opportunities identified by the report (and sheer size of the report itself) is daunting. Where should the White House, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, etc. start? Which potentially transformative policy must come first?

That’s why the full report was just the beginning of a broader federal push. Over the weeks and months to come, we will be reaching out to our 16,000+ member companies and working with our other partners on the report to generate support for industry- and agency-specific recommendations—ones that are targeted, actionable, and potent. We want to make sure that the voices of our member companies and the larger green building community are heard by the executive branch. We expect to deliver real results from their advocacy and leadership. We have already sent our top three recommendations over to the Department of Energy. Our January 21st memo recommends action on a green real estate appraisal standard, the tax deduction for commercial energy efficient commercial buildings, and loan guarantees for financing retrofits.

And the executive branch is paying attention! The President recently announced the Better Buildings Initiative (BBI) to improve commercial building energy performance, and he touched specifically on two of the three priorities. The BBI calls on Congress to take action but also lays out the steps the Administration is going to take by utilizing their existing authorities to create better buildings, better jobs, and lower energy bills.

By targeting executive branch action— along with continuing to push Congress to make progress on BBI and our other priorities like energy and water efficiency, healthy built environments, livable and walkable communities— we will continue to push forward toward the transformation of the built environment. Elections may change our strategy, but they certainly don’t change our priorities—or our expectations for meaningful results.