Back in February, President Barack Obama proposed a Better Buildings Initiative to reduce energy use across the nation, but so far, it’s all talk and no congressional action.
“The idea of the president’s plan is to be 20 percent more efficient over the next decade,” said Stan Alpert, a lawyer specializing in environmental and sustainability issues with Constantine Cannon. “The federal government is trying to catch up to Mike Bloomberg and Christine Quinn,” he added of New York City’s Benchmarking law and other initiatives.
The overall purpose of the BBI is to encourage both commercial and residential energy-smart buildings. Overall, the nation’s 5 million commercial buildings use about 20 percent of all the energy, and in most cities the buildings use closer to 40 percent. But in New York City, it is about 80 percent because most people use public transportation. “That’s the place you can save money,” said Alpert.
Obama called for an “aggressive reform of existing tax and other incentives for commercial building retrofits” and proposed a new competitive grant program. It would increase the ways to finance commercial retrofits and would create a new pilot program to guarantee loans through the Dept. of Energy for energy efficiency upgrades at places like hospitals and schools.
The president proposed a “Race to Green” that would create new competitive grants to states and local governments to encourage upgrades and attract investment.
The overall upgrades would be expected to save $40 billion per year in energy costs to governments, universities, hospitals, schools and corporations that could be used to hire new workers or invest in other businesses.
