Efficiency First

Recovery Act raises roof on weatherization

Over the past 33 years, the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) administered by DOE has gained a solid reputation as the nation’s core program for delivering energy efficiency services to low-income households. On average, weatherization reduces a recipient’s annual heating bills by 32 percent and decreases their overall utility bills by about $350 per year at current energy prices.

Nationally, more than 6.3 million households have experienced these energy efficiency improvements and related health and safety benefits through WAP since the program began in the late 1970’s.

For fiscal year 2009, Congress initially doubled funding for WAP to $450 million — from its recent average annual level of about $200-$250 million. Then in February, passage of the Recovery Act dramatically bumped up the annual WAP budget even further, providing the program with a one-time shot of $5 billion of additional funding to be spent over three years.

Not surprisingly, this caught peoples’ attention and catapulted weatherization assistance into the national limelight. Ever since, WAP has been subjected to increased scrutiny from many quarters. Program administrators at the federal, state and local level are all scrambling to handle the dramatic increase in funding and attention, along with new program mandates and reporting requirements that came hand-in-hand with the Recovery Act funding.

WAP is a complex program that has evolved over the past three decades to become the linchpin of a broad network of residential energy efficiency programs that reach far beyond the federal program administered by DOE.

States, Indian tribes, and now five territories, along with many other entities including but not limited to local governments, non-profit organizations, utilities, private contractors and other federal agencies, all play significant roles in making WAP successful.

Program regulations, guidance documents and best practices developed by DOE and used to administer WAP are also used by the broader weatherization network as the basis or model for their related efforts.

Here’s how it works.

Under WAP, the federal government itself weatherizes no homes; rather, it provides funding and oversight of its grantee agencies and local partners who do the actual work.