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Testimony Before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Kateri Callahan Energy Policy Act of 2005 My name is Kateri Callahan and I serve as the President of the Alliance to Save Energy, a bipartisan and nonprofit coalition of more than 90 business, government, environmental and consumer leaders. Mr. Chairman, the Alliance very much appreciates the leadership that you and your colleague on the Committee, Mr. Markey are providing to the Alliance as our congressional Vice-Chairs. The Alliance’s mission is to promote energy efficiency worldwide to achieve a healthier economy, a cleaner environment, and greater energy security. Energy efficiency is our country’s greatest indigenous energy resource. Over the past 30 years, our studies show that energy efficiency and conservation measures are now displacing the need for 40 Quads of energy each year. This means that energy efficiency is contributing more than coal, more than nuclear, and even more than oil to meeting our country’s thirst for energy. Yet it remains a resource that can deliver even more – and more quickly, more cheaply and more cleanly than any other supply, given meaningful public policy support. For this reason, the Alliance strongly supports the energy efficiency provisions included in the conference report to H.R. 6, but at the same time urge you and your colleagues, Mr. Chairman, to expand and enhance these provisions so that full potential of energy efficiency can be unleashed to lower demand and extend our energy supplies. Federal policies and programs established by the Congress, such as appliance and motor vehicle standards, research and development, and Energy Star have helped to make energy efficiency a key contributor to our Nation’s economy that it is today. For example, every federal dollar now invested in the Energy Star program returns $75 or more in consumer energy savings, reduces 3.7 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and sparks $15 in private sector capital. Over the past year, the Alliance has been exploring public policies that would deploy energy efficiency into every energy end-use sector of the economy as well as electricity and natural gas generation, transmission and distribution, and that would have a significant impact on projected energy growth between now and 2010. We have examined nearly 100 different policies and programs, choosing those that are most critical but also those we believe will be politically saleable. The Energy Information Administration is just now completing the analysis of these policies and the findings suggest that, taken together and if enacted, we might reduce the anticipated growth in energy demand between now and 2010 by approximately 10%. The savings from our recommended package are even more impressive in the out years. By 2025, we estimate that the policies could reduce the anticipated growth in energy demand by about 15%. Our policy recommendations are set out in some detail in my written testimony, and cover all of the energy efficiency provisions in H.R. 6, though under our plan many of the efficiency provisions would be more robust. For example, and importantly, the Committee’s discussion draft would place crippling limitations on the very effective Energy Savings Performance Contract program, which facilitates energy efficiency upgrades in federal buildings. The ESPC program is helping to save taxpayers roughly $1 billion each year in reduced federal energy costs; it is a program that should be expanded, not constrained. Our policy package also goes beyond the provisions in H.R. 6, to include proposals to reform the current CAFÉ program to assure that the fuel economy requirements under current law are being met by the automotive industry. We address the building sector through an innovative program that would assist states in putting in place the most current and aggressive building energy codes. And finally, gains in energy efficiency come largely from new technologies and improvement to existing ones; therefore, continuing and enhancing federal programs that support research, development and deployment of energy efficient technologies and practices is a key component of our package. Mr. Chairman, we need to shed the cardigan sweater images of yesteryear, get focused and serious about market-friendly ways to save energy, and no longer treat energy efficiency as the forgettable step child. Near-term and long-term, energy efficiency has a proven track record as the most abundant, least costly, and most domestically secure way to address our energy needs. We need to expand the use of this national resource through meaningful public policy if we are to reap the full potential it offers.
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