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Obama promotes home energy efficiency program

Tom Kessler — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:05:21 +0000

Eric Thomas
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WASHINGTON (KGO) — President Barack Obama is urging Americans to make their homes more energy efficient to save money and create jobs. The president also wants Congress to give people tax incentives for making the upgrades.

The battered U.S. economy is still the bottom line for Obama. He told business leaders and workers Tuesday morning that making homes and businesses more energy efficient ought to be a priority for Congress, because it’s smart and, well, sexy.

“Here’s what’s sexy about it: saving money,” he said.

Playing the sexy card to a crowd at a Virginia Home Depot may have been a bit of a stretch. But, Obama is pushing hard for his energy efficiency plan. He’s trying to pressure Congress into passing incentives for home and business owners who make their buildings more energy efficient.

“Our nation’s buildings, homes and offices consume almost 40 percent of the energy we use and contribute about 40 percent of the carbon pollution that we produce,” said Obama.

The plan the president first revealed last week would provide tax breaks to home and business owners that install energy efficient windows and doors and new insulation to keep the weather out and utility bills down. The White House isn’t saying how much it would cost, but, some estimates put the price tag at $150 million.

“If you saw 20 dollar bills just sort of floating through the window up into the atmosphere you would try to figure out how you were going to keep that. But that’s exactly what’s happening,” said Obama.

The president says retrofitting a home or business is not only good for the homeowner, it can be a real boost for the economy.

“Folks buy materials from home improvement stores like this one, which then buys them from manufacturers, which spurs hiring because local contractors and construction workers do the insulation; it saves consumers money, perhaps hundreds of dollars off their utility bill,” said Obama.

About $8 billion of the big stimulus package earlier this year went to promote energy saving investments in homes. Obama says combining the stimulus with other incentives could result in more than one million home improvement projects being done by 2012.

Stimulus plan puts green into green; the details so far…

BKessler — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:34:35 +0000

From Green Right Now Reports:

In a alert released this afternoon, entitled “Congress Gets It Right — Recovery Deal to Spur Clean Energy Economy”, the Natural Resources Defense Council praised the compromise stimulus package hammered out by Congress for the ways it steers the American economy in a greener direction.

“Congress really got it right with this economic recovery package that will deliver jobs and green infrastructure to America. The bill makes smart investments that will jumpstart the economy, help sustain future growth, and meet the challenges of the 21st century,”effused Wesley Warren, director of programs for the NRDC. “We need to put America on a path to a clean-energy economy, and Congress has taken a big step forward in heeding this call.

The compromise bill passed the House this afternoon, and was expected to be voted on in the Senate this evening.

The NRDC news alert noted that subsidies for liquid coal and nuclear energy had been removed from the bill and itemized the long list of remaining energy provisions, noting the jobs they are expected to create.

The list:

$6 billion for clean and safe water, creating more than 200,000 jobs

$4.5 billion for greening federal buildings

State energy grants, issued through the Treasury Department, that will fund renewable energy projects that are eligible for the available tax credits

Funding for the state energy program, which includes important utility reforms and building code conditions

$2.5 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy Research and Development

$5 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program, creating approximately 90,000 jobs

A multi-year extension of the renewable production tax credit

A more effective tax credit for home efficiency upgrades

$6 billion in loan guarantees for renewables [renewable energy like solar, wind facilities], [electricity] transmission and leading edge biofuels

$2 billion for advanced batteries [for use in hybrids]

$9.3 billion for intercity rail, including high-speed rail [see our story].

$27.5 billion for highways (this large pot of money is not exclusively for highways, and states and cities must use this flexibility to invest in fuel-efficient public transportation)

$8.4 billion for transit

$1.5 billion in competitive grants for transportation investments (which could be used for public transportation)

High Speed Rail to get stimulus money, putting America on track with other nations

BKessler — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:59:13 +0000

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

When the giant stimulus bill, expected to be approved by Congress, finally lumbers forth it will pour billions into projects that have been neglected, like highway renovations, and items that have recently bleeped onto the public radar screen, like clean energy incentives.

In some cases, money has been included (so far) for programs that have been debated and tabled for years. High speed rail, which is slated to get $8 billion, falls into that category.

You might ask yourself, what is high speed rail? And you’d be right to ask that question, because right now, in America, there is no high-speed rail. There’s a grand plan for a high-speed train that would run the length of California, where voters last fall approved the first bond money for the Sacramento to San Diego line. Once, years ago, people proposed high-speed rail as a way to better connect Dallas, Austin and Houston, a plan that met an early death in a state well-served by airlines and enamored of highways.

Today, in Chicago, the Midwest High Speed Rail Association (MHSRA) survives, clinging tenaciously to the concept that super-fast trains can be an environmental and social game-changer in the United States and that Chicago, a giant intersection of freight and passenger rail lines, would be an excellent nexus for a high speed rail system.

America is “beyond ready for this,” says Rick Harnish, executive director of the MHSRA. “Everywhere that decent train service has been built in the last 15 years has been tremendously successful.”

Even where rail has been badly designed – Harnish named a certain line in a large metropolitan area that placed stations at noisy freeway interchanges and chose a route that didn’t make complete sense – the trains are packed, he says.

Same for Amtrak, he added, which since gasoline prices began their jittery ways, has seen its ridership climb.

Considered to be underfunded by advocates, Amtrak has won passengers despite operating on a patchwork of rail that includes sharing lines with freight routes, which contributes to delays and constrains scheduling. It achieved record ridership in 2008, carrying 28.7 million passengers.

A good high-speed rail system, says Harnish, would lift rail out of its second-class existence as an alternative to planes and automobiles and make it competitive. Suddenly it would be affordable and convenient to take the train.

At speeds of 150 to 200 miles per hour, high-speed rail could deliver passengers from Chicago to Minneapolis, or from Chicago to St. Louis, or from Pittsburgh to New York City in under three hours, or even less than two hours.

Business and social trips that were onerous by car or required expensive airfare would be suddenly doable.