July e-News: Thoughts from the President and CEO
July 30, 2010
We’ve spoken before about how green building has been one of the few relatively bright spots in an otherwise difficult economic climate. Green building holds the promise of lowered energy bills for homeowners and commercial building tenants and more energy efficient structures, which help ease our demand on energy, and ultimately on oil, from both foreign and domestic sources.
Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to travel to Washington D.C. to take part in a Lobby Day supported by Building Star supporters, which included a full day of meetings centered on the Building Star legislation. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Congressman Peter Welch (D- VT) have been working on legislation to implement the Building Star program.
Previously, the House of Representatives passed Home Star legislation which focuses on the residential sector. Home Star is a two-year program designed to spur home energy retrofits by providing direct incentives to homeowners to install American-made, energy-saving products and conduct whole-home retrofits. This would help families see significant savings on their utility bills.
Building Star, which concentrates on commercial and multifamily buildings , would allow building owners access to low-cost loans to help pay for initial costs of renovations while the loans are paid back through savings on monthly energy bills. The program would also provide rebates for some retrofit equipment, such as high-efficiency furnaces; heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems; water heaters and insulation.
Lobby Day was an opportunity to meet with the offices of Senate and Congressional representatives from both parties to discuss adding Building Star provisions in the current Small Business legislation and to enlist additional co-sponsors of the small business bills (S. 3079/H.R. 5476).
The Building Star legislation would not only provide owners with the means to reduce energy costs, it put a distressed industry segment back to work and create new jobs. . The creation of new jobs would benefit some of the economy’s hardest hit sectors including manufacturing and distribution.
As most of the recent regulations and legislation have added costs to manufacturers, it’s particularly encouraging to be part of a true win-win situation. Legislation that’s good for business, good for building owners and good for the environment is something we can all get behind.
American Architectural