Split decision on passage of new energy bill

The Building Performance Institute applauds the energy efficiency provisions included in the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, which are expected to have significant impact on the energy efficiency performance requirements of new and existing homes and buildings. However, the National Association of Home Builders is not as impressed with the legislation.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Act by a vote of 219-212 June 26. Also referred to as the 'Waxman-Markey Bill,' this landmark energy and environment act is intended to provide incentives for reducing energy consumption, establish limits on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and create a trading system for GHG emission permits.

"We know that residential buildings are responsible for over 20 percent of America's carbon footprint, thanks to their consumption of fossil fuel energy," says Larry Zarker, CEO of BPI. "If we can improve the efficiency of the 128 million existing American homes, we can reduce our GHG emissions, create jobs and save homeowners a lot of money while also improving the durability and occupant comfort, health and safety of those homes."

The NAHB believes American home buyers deserve a more equitable solution than the American Clean Energy and Security Act as Congress moves to cut our nation's energy use, says the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).

"The hard truth is that we can't build our way out of this problem," said NAHB Chairman Joe Robson, a builder and developer in Tulsa, Okla. "We need to make sure our utilities more efficiently generate and transmit power. We need to make our existing housing stock more energy efficient. We need to reduce our 'plug load' - home appliances, televisions and computers - and make these products more energy efficient. This bill's focus on new home construction won't get us very far at all."

The legislation requires new homes to be built 30 percent more energy efficiently than mandated in the 2006 International Energy Conservation Code. That number increases to 50 percent by 2014 and then increases 5 percent every three years.

"That's simply too far, too fast," Robson said. "The market is not geared up to supply the necessary materials and equipment, and that's going to drive up costs. The result will be fewer working-class families in these new energy-efficient homes. They'll be relegated to older, less efficient housing stock and face ever higher utility bills."

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, homes are responsible for about 21 percent of the energy consumed each year. "Forcing more regulation on a fraction of those homes just won't move the needle," Robson said.

Nor does H.R. 2998 do much to address the more than 94 million homes built before 1991, when energy efficiency codes became the norm. The bill misses the mark because older, inefficient homes are the source of the vast majority of energy loss associated with buildings.

Key elements of the legislation includes:

Section 202: Building Retrofit Program of the ACESA establishes a Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance (REEP) program. Key elements of the REEP program include:

Energy Audit: Support for a free or low-cost building energy audit that achieves at least a 20 percent reduction in energy use, by providing an incentive equal to the cost of the audit (but not more than $200).

Prescriptive Approach: A total of $1,000 for a combination of measures for an audit designed to reduce energy consumption by more than 10 percent; a total of $2,000 for a combination of measures for an audit designed to reduce energy consumption by more than 20 percent.

Performance Approach: A total of $3,000 for demonstrated savings of 20 percent, according to a performance-based building retrofit program; and $1,000 for each additional 5 percentage points of energy savings beyond those listed in the approaches above.