If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made. Otto von Bismarck
The House of Representatives is starting the grind of turning the draft American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009 (ARRA) into legislation. It isn’t a pretty scene to watch … yet, watch it you must if you care about how $850 billion dollars or so might get spent.
Energy Efficiency is a big player in the ARRA, with some 24 mentions in the Henry Waxman’s 258 page draft bill. YEAH!
Well, sort of …
As highlighted by Ed Mazria of Architecture 2030 in material sent to Congress, there is little backbone behind these mentions, at least when it comes to the building infrastructure:
We found that only in some cases were there any requirements, and the programs with requirements were pretty vague as to render them ineffective. There were no benchmarks or energy reduction targets mentioned in the bill.
What all this means is that most building projects put forward may have little, if any, effective energy reduction strategies.
The ARRA invests, significantly, in oversight (for Inspector General (IG) offices and otherwise) but, when it comes to energy issues (and energy efficiency), there are no standards being put forth against literally $10s of billions (actually, over $100 billion in aggregate) of spending. To influence the making of sausage, it helps if you come to the table with ingredients. Mazria has developed “language that helps to prioritize and serve as a guideline for projects submitted for grants” that would “send a strong message to the building community, that business as usual is no longer the order of the day. That we expect better performance from our building stock and that the federal government will lead the way.”
Here Architecture 2030’s suggested language for insertion associated with all building programs:
Provided further, That for any new building construction or renovation project grants made under this heading, preference shall be given to projects that achieve overall energy savings compared to the Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey 2003 (CBECS or other comparable codes, standards or measurement protocols authorized by the Secretary of Energy) of, in the following order of priority—(1) carbon neutral, (2) 85 percent, (3) 70 percent, (4) 55 percent.
While this does not achieve the multiple wins and extent of reach and impact of the Architecture 2030’s $197 billion plan to create 9 million jobs, spark $1.5+ trillion in economic activity and leap the nation forward in terms of reducing carbon emissions, the impact of these simple words should not be discounted. Architecture 2030’s estimate:
We estimate that we could affect about one billion square feet of building with the Stimulus, including new and renovated space (not including weatherization). That is about 158 trillion Btu’s of US energy consumption (and associated GHG emissions). Assuming a 50/50 split between new building and renovation, half of that amount will be added to total US energy consumption and the other half will be fixed until the renovated buildings are renovated again (15-20 years?).
So few words, so much impact.
As Ed concluded his note to Congress (and me):
As our new President said, there is some heavy lifting to do. It’s time to begin
.