Five Groups Urging Support for US Energy Efficiency Bill

A number of groups have written joint letters demanding that the federal government pass energy efficiency legislation currently working its way through Congress. On April 18, 2013, Mrs. SHAHEEN (for herself, Mr. PORTMAN, Mr. COONS, and Ms. COLLINS) read the bill known as the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013. It was read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resource.

The five groups that signed the letter are:
The Alliance to Save Energy
The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC)
Business Roundtable
The National Association of Manufacturers
US Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy

The letters state that the Act enjoys strong, bipartisan support and should serve as the foundation for a comprehensive national energy policy.

The White House letter encourages the administration to maintain energy efficiency as a top priority in shaping energy policy for the country. It describes the president’s target of doubling the country’s energy productivity by 2030, which was issued in the most recent State of the Union, as an “ambitious but achievable goal…best met through deployment of energy efficiency.”

Some of the signatories to these letters had previously released reports that substantiate the value of the bill.

The Alliance to Save Energy’s Energy2030 report, calls on the nation to invest, modernize, and educate in order to reach a goal of doubling US energy productivity by 2030.

BPC’s report America’s Energy Resurgence: Sustaining Success, Confronting Challenges, includes more than 50 consensus-based recommendations on policy options to diversify energy production, including through cost-effective energy efficiency.

The energy efficiency bill calls for:

strengthening national model building codes to make new homes and commercial buildings more energy efficient while working with states and private industry to make the code-writing process more transparent
Providing competitive funding to states in support of commercial building energy-efficiency financing;
Encouraging the Department of Energy to work with private sector partners to invest in the research, development and commercialization of innovative energy-efficient technology and processes for industrial applications
Establishing a volunteer Energy Department program – SupplySTAR – to help improve the efficiency of corporate supply chains.