The Senate will likley vote within the next 10 days on an energy bill that includes rebates worth up to $8,000 for homeowners who do energy efficient retrofits.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., included the Home Star program -- also called "cash for caulkers" -- in scaled-back energy legislation unveiled this week. His bill also aims to boost oil spill liability and natural gas-powered vehicles but does not cap industrial greenhouse gas emissions.
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"The senator stressed he'd like to get this done before the August recent," slated to begin Aug. 9, says Larry Laseter, who represented companies backing the program at a press conference today with Sen. Reid. The Home Star Coalition includes trade groups and major companies such as Lowe's, Home Depot and Sears.
President Obama has promoted the Home Star program, which gives homeowners rebates for energy efficient retrofits. Here, he spoke in December at a Home Depot in Alexandria, Va., about the value of such upgrades.
By Susan Walsh, AP
The Home Star Energy Retrofit Act, which President Obama has touted, has moved quickly through Congress. In May, the House of Representatives passed the two-year program with bi-partisan support.
"It's just a good, common-sense bill," says Laseter, president of WellHome, a home-retrofit company, adding it will create 170,00 jobs, save homeowners' money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The program would give rebates for adding insulation, sealing ducts and installing efficient water heaters, heating units, windows and doors. The rebates would be worth $1,500 per measure, capped at 50% of project costs or $3,000, whichever is less. They could reach $8,000 for a whole-house retrofit that can prove, via a thorough audit, that it has halved energy use.
"The impact is immediate," says Laseter, noting that plenty of contractors are ready to go.
The program could help lower the construction industry's 24% unemployment rate, says Bracken Hendricks, senior fellow of the Center for American Progress, a self-described "progressive" research group.
"It's very much a made-in-America strategy," Bracken tells Green House, adding that efficiency upgrades aren't outsourced to foreign countries.
Congress has taken other steps to promote home efficiency. It's funded federal tax credits for certain Energy Star products and efficiency upgrades, $300 million for the "cash for appliance" program, which states rolled out this year, and $5 billion in three-year stimulus funding to weatherize homes.
The House approved $6 billion for Home Star, while Reid's bill calls for $5 billion.
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