The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC, Washington, D.C.) says the House of Representative’s passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 includes several significant provisions to incentivize and accelerate the benefits of green building across the country.
“From programs that would generate billions of dollars to spur and scale green retrofitting of our existing building stock to inclusion of the GREEN Act, which would create new opportunities for green affordable housing, this bill recognizes that green building is a major part of the solution to our economic and energy challenges,” says Rick Fedrizzi, president, ceo and founding chair, USGBC. “With this federal commitment, green building can help propel the new green economy by creating enormous energy and cost savings for millions of Americans.”
One initiative in the energy and climate legislation is The Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance (REEP) program, which supports the creation of retrofitting initiatives throughout the country for residential and nonresidential buildings that may offer a variety of incentives, including credit enhancements, interest rate subsidies, and initial capital for public revolving loan funds.
A Building Energy Performance Labeling Program, which directs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to create model building energy performance labels for new construction, will establish a meaningful and consistent basis for evaluating the energy performance of residential and commercial buildings. And the EPA’s WaterSense program will designate products as water efficient, as well as provide funding for state incentive programs for use of water-efficient products.
According to the USGBC, buildings account for 40 percent of U.S. energy consumption, 39 percent of CO2 emissions and 13 percent of water consumption. The nonprofit says greater building efficiency can meet 85 percent of future U.S. demand for energy.