Efficiency First

A Nov. 23 editorial in the Barre Montpelier Times Argus names Rep. Peter Welch as one of 45 co-signers of a letter to President Obama that urges the White House to “fast-track a retrofit program that would make available stimulus money for energy efficiency work.” The newspaper quotes the letter as setting a target of five million efficiency retrofits, “creating more than 600,000 jobs and saving homeowners $3 billion a year in energy bills.”

Benefits outlined in the editorial include:

Let the middle class and small business take advantage of government aid to improve their own buildings. This isn’t the AIG bailout; this is providing money for individuals. With the slump in real estate values, the equity individuals can borrow against to improve their homes has been severely curtailed, over and above the seizing up of the credit markets we endured over the last year or so.

It’s immediate. As a visit to the local hardware store confirms, with winter around the corner, homeowners are busy doing weatherization now. Homeowners could be expected to tap into the funds as soon as they became available, bypassing the bureaucratic process that has slowed stimulus spending and blunted its effectiveness.

Support for any single project maxes out at $3,000 and is capped at 50 percent of the total cost, so the individual has to invest their own money as well. In general, stimulus projects that have worked have included local matches of some kind, as a check against frivolous projects simply designed to pick the government project.

According to Welch’s office, every dollar invested in efficiency returns $4 in savings. This program makes real money available, invested at a time when people and the economy need it, providing enduring benefits

The Times Argus concludes that “Energy efficiency represents the kind of commonsense thinking that Vermonters across the spectrum applaud. The White House ought to approve the measure so homeowners can put the money to good use sooner, rather than later.”

Read the full editorial here:
www.timesargus.com/article/20091123/OPINION01/911230306