Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Energy Retrofits: The Next Really Big Beauraucracy

Here's an article which describes the "energy retrofit" provision of the Waxman-Markey bill.

...contains a new federal policy that residential, commercial, and government buildings be retrofitted to increase energy efficiency, leaving it up to the states to figure out exactly how to do that.

This means that homeowners, for example, could be required to retrofit their homes to meet federal “green” guidelines in order to sell their homes, if the cap-and-trade bill becomes law.

The program will be assembled by the EPA (ugh)...

“The Administrator shall develop and implement, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy, standards for a national energy and environmental building retrofit policy for single-family and multi-family residences,” the bill reads. It continues: “The purpose of the REEP program is to facilitate the retrofitting of existing buildings across the United States.”

...and will be carried out by the States...

“States shall maintain responsibility for meeting the standards and requirements of the REEP program,” the bill says.

...and will involve a bunch of different inspectors, contractors, and other actors...

The program would involve a system of certified auditors, inspectors, and raters who inspect homes and businesses using devices such as infrared cameras (which measure how much heat a building is giving off) to measure their energy efficiency. The results of these energy audits would then be used to determine what retrofits need to be performed. The audits would examine things like water usage, [using tools like] infrared photography and pressurized testing to determine the efficiency of door and window seals, and indoor air quality. Those retrofits would be performed by licensed retrofit contractors using government-approved methods and resources including roofing materials that reflect solar energy.

“[B]uilding retrofits conducted pursuant to a REEP program utilize, especially in all air-conditioned buildings, roofing materials with high solar energy reflectance,” the legislation states.

...and completion audits...

After the retrofitting is complete, the government – state, local, or federal – will come back and re-inspect the house to determine how much energy has been saved and whether the retrofit is up to federal government standards. “Determination of energy savings in a performance-based building retrofit program through — (A) for residential buildings, comparison of before and after retrofit scores,” the proposal states.

...and free money!!!..except that the States must cough up the cash...

To help pay for the cost of these retrofits, states and localities may provide loans, utility rate rebates, tax rebates, or implement retrofit programs on their own. In fact, the government will even pay up to 50 percent of the cost of a retrofit through financial awards to individual home and building owners

What a racket...

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