On December 19th, NRDC, the Alliance to Save Energy, the Edison Electric Institute, and the EnergyFuture coalition released a comprehensive plan to create jobs and save money through energy efficiency. Peter Lehner, our Executive Director, blogged extensively on the major components of the proposal, including:
• Home retrofits
• Commercial building retrofits
• Low-income weatherization
• Public building retrofits
• Continuing existing utility efficiency programs
• Incentives for long term reforms to utility regulations and better building codes

This proposal covers the key sectors of efficiency opportunities and lays the groundwork for even larger savings in the future. This "stimulus" investment is going to pay back in the short term (immediate job creation and energy savings), mid term (savings from efficiency continue to add up and flow into the economy), and long term (by allowing utilities to value efficiency as an energy source and by making our new buildings more efficient). It seems like a no-brainer because it is one, and the diverse interests of industry, utility, labor, and environmental groups represented in the plan demonstrate the proposal's widespread appeal.

Individual pieces of this proposal are already being called for in the media. The New York Times ran an excellent article yesterday on the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) and its effectiveness in reducing energy costs where most needed. The program will weatherize 140,000 homes this year, and President-Elect Obama has pledged to increase that number to 1 million homes per year. In the Huffington Post, Steve Cowell talks about the benefits of fully leveraging existing utility programs to quickly get more efficiency investment. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Consider the 140,000 homes weatherized this year and the future goal of 1 million per year. Throw in all the homes weatherized through utility programs or home performance programs. Now consider that there are around 111 million homes in the US, and an additional 4.6 million commercial buildings representing 65 billion square feet. We haven't even started yet.

Bottom line, we have a long, long way to go, and the policies in this package are just a start.  The size of this country's efficiency potential is immense.  The good news is that all this work represents jobs for Americans that can never be sent overseas and also happen to have nice side effects, like increased disposable income and lower global warming emissions. The bad news is that nothing is guaranteed and a lot can change in a month in Washington, but the momentum continues to build behind energy efficiency and making smart investment decisions to accelerate our economic recovery.