Earth Day – Coming to a Home Near You

Lane Burt, NRDC, Washington DC
Posted on Wednesday 21st April 2010

Vice President Joe Biden kicked off five days of Earth Day events today with the announcement that 25 communities have been selected for up to $452 million in Recovery Act funding to “ramp-up” energy efficiency building retrofits as part of the Department of Energy’s “Ramp-Up” Initiative goals. The White House pointed out that retrofit models developed will save individuals and businesses roughly $100 million annually in utility bills, generating 30,000 jobs over three years.

The ramp up will be an experiment in making efficiency work at a larger scale with the winning proposals demonstrating unique and creative approaches to making retrofits happen. Cracking the retrofit nut, meaning figuring out how to take making your home more efficient from a niche activity to the norm is tough, even though these things make money in the long run. For a slew of reasons, folks don't stop the $20 bills from leaking out their windows, and the administration has decided to stop talking about the problem and, in the spirit of the original bipartisan, cooperative Earth Day, partner with states, localities, and industry to do something about it. The $2.8 billion that this Recovery Act funding will leverage will demonstrate to homeowners and policy makers what works so that we can repeat the success across the country.

This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard.

Lane Burt is a Building Energy Policy Manager at The Natural Resources Defense Council’s Washington DC office. NRDC is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the environment, people and animals. NRDC was founded in 1970 and is comprised of more than 300 lawyers, scientists and policy experts, with more than one million members and e-activists.

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