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The Obama Administration's Fiscal Year 2010 budget, along with legislation on energy and climate change, continues to hold center stage on Capitol Hill. The Alliance provides its commentary on the prospects for energy efficiency within the appropriations and legislative processes.
May 13, 2009 – Last week brought the long-anticipated release of the Obama Administration’s Fiscal Year 2010 budget. The funding levels requested for energy efficiency indicate that deploying this abundant “resource” remains a first priority for the President and his team. The proposed FY 2010 budget represents a steady increase in funding for most energy efficiency programs, and we believe these levels of funding will help the President achieve his stated goal of creating and sustaining a new clean energy economy. The Alliance has applauded the administration for its recognition of the value of energy efficiency to the American people.
As you know, the Alliance has a strong portfolio of initiatives, collaborations and partnerships focused on the built environment, which accounts for roughly 40 percent of U.S. energy use and carbon emissions. We are delighted, therefore, that the budget request specifically calls for a $98 million increase in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Building Technologies Program, from $140 million to about $238 million. The Building Technologies Program includes programs on building energy codes, appliance standards, commercial buildings, residential buildings and research and development, as well as DOE's ENERGY STAR program. All of these programs saw considerable increases. Notably, the administration seeks $10 million for building codes (a priority for the Alliance), representing an 89 percent increase in funding over FY 2009.
Other DOE programs received increases as well, including a $10 million recommended increase for the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) – as advocated by the Alliance – which would take program funding to $32 million; and a $25 million increase for the State Energy Program, which would take program funding to $75 million. The Alliance had urged the administration to increase FEMP funding because the lack of adequate funding has limited FEMP’s ability to manage energy use throughout the federal government.
There was one major disappointment in the budget, however. The administration has proposed essentially “flat” funding for the ENERGY STAR program at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for a total proposed budget of only $50.7 million. We are hopeful that the Congress will be more generous, and we will continue to advocate for a doubling of funding to this critical and effective program. We firmly believe that $100 million is needed – and will reap significant returns to consumers and the country as a whole – by enabling this highly successful program to increase the number of products and to develop the technologies that are needed for the ENERGY STAR homes of tomorrow. For more information, see Kateri’s written and oral testimony.
With the exception of EPA's ENERGY STAR, the administration’s proposed budget reinforces the objectives of the economic recovery package enacted in February, which built toward the important goals of weatherizing one million homes per year, making energy efficiency upgrades to 75 percent of federal buildings, and creating nearly 500,000 new green jobs. This budget is certainly a step in that direction. It also preserves and expands the base funding for key energy efficiency programs in advance of the time when stimulus funding is no longer available.
House and Senate Work on Climate and Energy Bills
The question of how we sustain the “one-time” energy efficiency investments made through the stimulus bill relates closely to the fate of climate and/or energy legislation in the 111th Congress. While energy and climate legislation are proceeding on two separate tracks in the Senate, House Energy & Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman will put forward a combined energy and climate bill. The draft bill has not yet been released publicly, but Chairman Waxman intends to both introduce and begin mark up of the legislation as early as tomorrow. (As has been reported widely, Chairman Waxman decided to by-pass subcommittee consideration of the measure prior to full committee mark-up to expedite negotiations and in an attempt to keep to his self-imposed deadline of reporting a bill by the Memorial Day recess.)
The Alliance strongly supports the creation of a cap-and-trade program that caps carbon emissions, sets a price on carbon, includes complementary policies to drive energy efficiency, and includes significant investment in energy efficiency. The first draft Waxman-Markey legislation largely comports with this important framework, and we are hopeful that the committee draft, which we expect to be released tomorrow night, will adhere to these principles.
The Alliance and an “Energy Efficiency Coalition” of advocates, businesses and associations that we organized and now lead has indicated its support for the goals of the Waxman Markey bill, and importantly, has called for $30 billion of allowance revenues from the proposed cap and trade program to be allocated to state and federal energy efficiency programs. This request was supported by 146 organizations in a letter sent to the members of the House Energy & Commerce Committee last week.
In the Senate, the Energy Committee led by Alliance Honorary Congressional Vice Chairs Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) continues to mark up a series of bills that they intend to report as a comprehensive energy bill. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)has announced that her committee will carefully review energy and climate legislation that emerge from the House, but she has not announced any firm time table for action.
The Alliance eagerly awaits the text of the Waxman-Markey bill and we intend to craft a “side-by-side” comparison of its provisions with energy measures under consideration in the Senate (and will add climate provisions from that body if/when they begin to emerge). We will provide this document to you as soon as it is available, and we – of course – will continue to keep you updated on actions in the House and Senate. In the meantime, if you have questions, need additional information, or most importantly would like to engage with us in our advocacy efforts, please contact our policy team at policyinfo@ase.org.
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