Efficiency First

By Laura Reedy-Stukel – Realtor, Elmhurst, IL

REEP Learning Points from a Conservative House District

While in DC, my groups met with supporters and skeptics.  We met with the educated and the confused.  From a really engaged staffer from Maine I learned about some of the political challenges of a grant-based bill.    Then I literally watched the “ah ha moment” happen for my own rep’s staffer as I explained why windows alone don’t have the same ROI to support high-performance efficiency that’s possible with REEP.  The experience was a very powerful lesson in the twists and turns to make a bill into a law!

My own house congressional district leans very much on the conservative side, and the staffer we met was representative of this.  Out of all the meetings I sat in on, he was probably the most skeptical.  But we gleaned great learnings out of his hesitation.  Based on the takeaways from our meeting and reflection about the points that really seemed to interest him, here are the new messages I would share with him if we did it all over again:

• The existing energy efficiency tax credits do not offer the robust benefits package that REEP could encourage.  Our plan creates an opportunity with multiple benefits for creating local jobs that cannot be outsourced, cutting foreign oil usage, and cutting constituents’ monthly bills by 10-30% so it can be spent locally on other things.
• We’re just looking for a temporary nudge…without a nudge the market will not get started.  We cannot achieve the three-fold benefits above without this nudge.  There are barriers to consumer awareness and consumer spending that we need to overcome.
• There is a common myth that windows alone are an easy path to energy efficiency and that is not the case.  There is a loading order to things that makes the above three benefits possible.  Consumers need a nudge to get restarted with a loading order.
• Once we get the market started, others will follow.  And, as a Realtor I know that once those weatherized homes (with lower operating costs) start to sell more successfully, follow up sellers will play catch up.
• The community colleges can play a key role in reskilling construction laborers for building performance work.

Like recycling, energy efficiency is something that is widely supported regardless of political background.  Energy efficiency is additionally appealing because of the extra benefit of reducing home expenses.