Opportunities for Energy Efficiency in the Stimulus Package

Here is a summary of the funding and tax cuts for energy efficiency in the package signed by President Obama on February 17th, 2009

Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants $3.2 billion

Weatherization Assistance Program: $5.0 billion to weatherize over a million homes.

Home Efficiency Retrofit Program: Creates a new $2.25 billion program to upgrade Housing and Urban Development sponsored housing to make it more energy efficient

State Energy Program: $3.1 billion

Energy Efficiency Tax Credits: One-year extension and expands the credit to increase the amount of the tax credit from ten to thirty percent of the amount paid by the taxpayer. (Estimated cost: $4.275 billion)

Federal Buildings Efficiency Improvements: $4.5 billion

Energy Efficient Appliances: $300 million

Native American Housing Block Grants: $510 million

Qualified Energy Conservation Bonds: $3.2 billion in bonding authority

Department of Defense Energy Efficiency Research: $300 million

Department of Defense Energy Conservation Construction: $220 million

Total Energy Efficiency Investment:: $26,855,000,000 investment including the projected investment from tax cuts for energy efficiency tax credits.

More to come.

I got a bit sidetracked in the course of my research. Here are two excellent presentations and a website discussing energy efficiency by a professional society of physicists.

http://www.aps.org/energyefficiencyreport/index.cfm

http://files.eesi.org/lubell_020509.pdf

http://files.eesi.org/laitner_020509.pdf

By the way, Daniel Sperling was on the Daily Show the other night promoting his book Two Billion Cars: Driving towards Sustainability.