Center for American Progress Weighs in on HOME STAR
Bracken Hendricks and Tom Kenworthy of the Center for American Progress have published an excellent overview of the HOME STAR program that is currently taking shape in Congress, including analysis of the economic and environmental arguments in favor of stimulating consumer demand for energy retrofits:
HOME STAR, sometimes called “cash for caulkers,” is a proposal that makes sense. It makes economic sense because it can provide a quick employment stimulus putting 168,000 people to work—the overwhelming majority of them in jobs that can’t be outsourced overseas. It makes sense for homeowners who will be able to afford home improvements that will pay real dollar dividends for many years by reducing their energy bills 20 percent or more forever. It makes sense for businesses who will see demand for their products increase. And it makes sense for a more secure energy future since increasing the number of homes with energy efficient retrofits from 200,000 a year to 3 million a year will cut global warming pollution by the equivalent of taking 615,000 cars off the road or decommissioning four 300-megawatt power plants.
As important as these energy benefits are, however, HOME STAR is clearly a job creator and the right medicine for the economy.
The article also explores the ways in which HOME STAR leverages excess capacity in the construction and manufacturing sectors to reduce carbon emissions and put Americans back to work:
One of the most exciting things about a recovery plan built on home energy retrofits is what it does for American jobs. HOME STAR supports domestic job creation by investing in skilled construction, which results in good American jobs that can’t be outsourced. But it can have tremendous benefits for other hard-hit sectors of the U.S. economy, too, especially manufacturing industries.
The majority of manufactured goods used in HOME STAR retrofits are already made in the United States, averaging well over 90 percent domestic production in most major goods, with all categories included in the Senate HOME STAR bill reporting above the national average for domestic production. A focus on home energy retrofits will therefore by its very nature disproportionately support American industries and target its benefits to help American workers.
Read the rest of the article here:
www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/02/home_star_back_to_work.html
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In my original proposal, “Greener American Homes initiative” to The White House last October, I also suggested that any new leglislation of this kind should also include a small business component of equal or greater value. In Pennsylvania we have seen an alarming number of small businesses struggling to pay for their electricity to operate. Locally, here in Chambersburg, for instance, the Chambersburg Cold Storage Company stated that if they are not able to get some relief from higher electric utility bills, they will likely have to close their doors by 2012. That means local jobs. And, they are not alone.
On January 1, 2010, the Electric Utility Rate Caps have come off here in many pats of the state exposing small businesses and homeowners to a 40% hike in their electric utility bills. Just this past weekend, our Borough of Chambersburg Electric Department made it known that on April 1, 2010 we will see, yet another, 5% to 15% increase on top of that.
Recognizing that this trend will more and likely continue well into the future, wouldn’t it be prudent to include small businesses in any current leglislation. After, all, they create 80% of all jobs in this great country of ours. They are increasingly facing more and more competition from our overseas markets, not to mention the fact that they pollute twice as much as do our homes.
Therefore, is there anyone out there who is willing to step up and do the right thing, and reach out to the real job creators and offer them some of the same kinds of rebates that are now being considered for the homeowners? Call it “Small Business Star”. Talk about stimulating the economy!