1. Home
  2. Articles posted by: Rona Fried (Page 2066)

House Punts on Efficiency, Senate Looking Better

In April, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a comprehensive energy bill that does relatively little to promote energy efficiency. According to ACEEE’s analysis, this bill will produce only about 57% of the energy savings of the bill passed by the House last year. The reduction in energy savings is primarily due to the fact that tax incentives for efficient new homes, commercial buildings, appliances, and combined heat and power (CHP) plants included in last year’s bill were dropped this year. Savings were also lost because the House gutted a provision in last year’s bill calling on DOE to set efficiency standards for ceiling fans. However, the House bill will produce some savings, primarily from new efficiency standards on half a dozen products, tax incentives for upgrades to existing homes, an expansion of daylight savings time, and R&D efforts and direction to redesign the appliance “Energy Guide” label. The Senate energy bill is looking better, with markup scheduled to begin May 17. The Senate is likely to add half a dozen additional consensus efficiency standards to the House bill that ACEEE helped negotiate. The Senate is also likely to add back in many, if not all, of the efficiency tax […]

Read More