The federal government’s failure to take easy and inexpensive steps, such as insulating walls and roofs and installing more efficient appliances, adds $1 billion a year to the energy and housing costs of 3 million of the nation’s poorest families.
That’s the conclusion of "Up the Chimney: How HUD’s Inaction Costs Taxpayers Millions and Drives Up Utility Bills for Low-income Families," a report issued August 26, 2010 by Charlie Harak of the National Consumer Law Center
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development spends well over $5 billion annually to pay for heat and power for public housing authorities and subsidized rental units, or to assist low-income households who pay those utility bills directly. By making better use of existing energy efficiency programs (including those offered for free by utility companies), and by improving data collection on energy use in subsidized units, HUD could easily trim more than $1 billion from that tab, according to the NCLC report.
"By failing to take full advantage of existing energy efficiency programs, the federal government wastes taxpayers’ money, needlessly spends scarce housing funding on energy and utility bills, and plunges poor families deeper into poverty," said Charlie Harak, a NCLC senior attorney and author of the report
According to HUD’s most recent energy report to Congress, one of the agency’s key energy efficiency programs (called "energy performance contracting") has reached only 1% of the country’s 2,300 small housing authorities, and only 167 of the 800 largest housing authorities. "HUD has barely touched the low-hanging fruit that could yield tremendous savings for taxpayers and for the poor families that the agency helps to house," Harak said
The NCLC report provides a detailed action plan to make HUD greener. It calls upon HUD to:
- step up its participation in utility-administered energy-efficiency programs,
- offer simplified energy performance contracts to small housing authorities,
- use community development block grants to supplement weatherization funding
- expedite weatherization program participation by housing authorities and owners of subsidized rental units, and
- re-calculate tenant utility allowances to reward conservation and investments in energy efficiency.
The report also calls upon HUD to compile much better data about energy usage, costs and efficiency in the large portfolio of housing authority and rental units it subsidizes; set explicit, attainable goals for energy savings; and establish an Office of Energy Efficiency Implementation to make sure housing authorities and owners of subsidized housing actually achieve those goals.
The report notes several indicators that HUD has not seriously tackled energy inefficiency in its assisted housing stock. 43% of heating systems in public housing in the Northeast are at least 20 years old. Electric resistance space heating–the most expensive and least efficient way to heat most homes–remains the most common heating source in public housing. And fewer than one in four refrigerators in public housing had the Energy Star designation that signifies compliance with Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency standards for a high level of energy efficiency.
The full report is available at the link below.
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