Energizing the Economy

Planning is underway for a new economic stimulus package that will help get the economy to its feet after a particularly bad fall down the stairs.  And many groups agree with the Alliance to Save Energy that energy - particularly energy efficiency - should play a prominent role in the overall economic strategy.

As it appears now, the bill in question will focus on investments in infrastructure rather than on direct payments. This creates a perfect opportunity for the federal government to promote energy efficiency while creating jobs and saving consumers money, according to the Taxes and Appropriations Group (TAG), an Alliance-founded coalition created five years ago to bring industry and environmental groups together to work on federal funding and tax incentives for programs supporting energy efficiency.

The group – whose members range from Owens Corning, The Dow Chemical Company and Whirlpool to the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environment America and the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy – has previously been instrumental in achieving key legislative victories on the Hill.  Now TAG is concentrating on developing a comprehensive and evolving set of recommendations that would help to save businesses and residents money on energy costs while creating jobs, reducing carbon emissions and investing in the long-term viability of America’s infrastructure.

How do TAG's recommendations correlate with the overall strategy of the forthcoming economic stimulus package? For one, policymakers are envisioning a bill that has an immediate effect on the economy. To this point, TAG's recommendations focus on funding for already-authorized programs, rather than new programs that will take months to create and ultimately defeat the purpose of a stimulus bill. Excerpts from TAG's evolving document include:

• A $40 million appropriation for the Public Information Initiative (PII), which was authorized in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. PII is a one-year consumer education campaign that would help consumers to lower their utility bills. The campaign would emphasize energy-saving actions, like energy efficiency home improvements, that could deliver work and jobs to contractors, retailers and manufacturers while also helping consumers manage their energy costs.
• Funding for job training, including $125 million for the Green Jobs Act and $25 million for existing training programs administered through the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
• $300 million in additional funding for the Weatherization Assistance Program, which would create jobs for contractors, retailers and manufacturers while helping low-income households to meet rising energy bills.

Furthermore, the TAG proposals are extremely relevant in the context of today's economic stresses: if accepted in full, these measures would create over one hundred thousand jobs, while also reducing carbon emissions, improving America’s infrastructure and reducing utility bills for years to come.

Finally, they have the potential to overcome what Alliance Vice-President for Policy and Research Joe Loper called a “cycle of complacency” in his December 9 testimony to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. "When the economy is good, there’s no time for energy efficiency, and when the economy is bad, there’s no money for it,” said Loper in his testimony, in which he recommended $15 billion for energy efficiency investments.

This call for immediate action backed by a long-term strategy has been echoed at a higher frequency as the drafting of the economic stimulus package draws closer. On December 19 Alliance president Kateri Callahan; Tom Kuhn, president, Edison Electric Institute; Peter Lehner, executive director, Natural Resources Defense Council; and Reid Detchon, executive director, Energy Future Coalition held a news conference at the National Press Club, during which they presented a package of proposals for stimulating the U.S. economy and creating green jobs while making the nation more energy efficient.