Congress–uncharacteristically, these days–overwhelming agreed that energy efficiency is important by passing legislation to modify appliance efficiency standards and increase industrial and federal energy efficiency efforts. While these provisions were cherry picked as the least controversial among many others in several energy efficiency bills introduced in the House and Senate, President Obama’s signature on H.R. 6582, the American Energy Manufacturing Technical Corrections Act, showed some slight movement in energy efficiency policy. Perhaps this is a sign that energy efficiency policy is an issue we can build on in this next Congress.
Read H.R. 6582 here: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr6582enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr6582enr.pdf
Last week, Senator Bingaman held a hearing in the Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure Subcommittee of the Finance Committee, to discuss incentives to promote energy efficiency through tax reform and federal policy. The Chairman is retiring but we think the topic will continue to see increasing air time–the cheapest, quickest, cleanest way to reduce carbon emissions while boosting productivity.
