Jeanne Shaheen, Rob Portman have high hopes for energy efficiency bill

News
April 18, 2013

Politico

Posted by ANDREW RESTUCCIA

Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Rob Portman are optimistic they can do what many in the energy community gave up on years ago: pass legislation.

The lawmakers will introduce a bipartisan bill Thursday to help increase energy efficiency that they say has a fighting chance of making it to the president’s desk.

Though prospects for a wide-ranging energy bill are slim, experts say measures to improve energy efficiency could help reduce energy costs and consumption while also addressing global warming in the short term. The International Energy Agency, for example, said in a report issued late last year that a global energy-efficiency push could do a great deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions while countries work on a binding climate change accord.

“As we see a divided Congress, it’s nice to see something that we can agree on. I think this bill is one of them,” Portman told POLITICO in a joint interview with Shaheen ahead of the bill’s official release. “We’re optimistic that we can make progress in the Senate in the short run and get it through the House in the next year and then get it signed into law.”

The bill’s success is far from certain, but the senators say they’ve taken every precaution to prevent the measure from going down in flames.

Over the course of months-long negotiations, the senators have won the buy-in of more than 200 organizations, from the Union of Concerned Scientists to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They’ve alleviated the concerns of Republican senators wary of federal mandates and expensive new programs. And they’ve reached out to their counterparts in the House.

“It hasn’t been easy, but I think it’s a pretty good model of how you get things done over here,” Portman said. “It’s an example of what can get done around here if you have a transparent, open process.”

Shaheen and Portman will unveil their legislation during a press conference Thursday morning and will be joined by a range of trade groups that support the bill, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Alliance to Save Energy and the National Association of Manufacturers.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee plans to hold a hearing on the legislation Tuesday, and Portman said he is hoping for a vote in the panel in May or June.

Portman said he and Shaheen have identified a plan to offset the cost of the legislation, but he said they hope to finalize it in committee.

Staffers for Shaheen and Portman have been in talks with House Energy and Commerce Committee staff to gauge their appetite for taking up the legislation. And House Republicans have said they see energy efficiency as a key area of compromise with the Senate.

“Communication with the Senate has been ongoing and we look forward to reviewing the introduced version of their bill,” a GOP Energy and Commerce Committee aide said.

The legislation, known as the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act, focuses on improving energy efficiency in commercial buildings, the manufacturing sector and the federal government.

Among other things, the bill strengthens building codes to make new homes and buildings more efficient, creates a new Energy Department program called SupplySTAR to improve the efficiency of companies’ supply chains and requires the federal government — the country’s largest energy user — to adopt strategies to conserve the electricity used for computers.

 “I think energy efficiency is the cheapest, fastest way to deal with the energy challenges we face in this country,” Shaheen said.

The lawmakers altered the legislation from a previous version they introduced in the last Congress that drew opposition from Republicans.

The new bill eliminates provisions that required the Energy Department to expand its loan program to fund efficiency retrofits of buildings. That provision fell victim to leeriness of the DOE loan program, which has been a top target for Republicans after it granted solar company Solyndra a $535 million loan guarantee before it sunk into bankruptcy.

The new version also nixes a provision to set up a revolving loan program with states to fund efficiency upgrades. Instead, the legislation establishes a Commercial Building Energy Efficiency Financing Initiative to provide money to states to improve building efficiency.

The disagreements over the previous version of the bill prompted lawmakers to craft a pared down package that incorporated some measures from Shaheen-Portman, as well as provisions being pushed by House Republicans and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. That compromise bill passed Congress last year and was signed into law by the president, but Shaheen and Portman quickly vowed to move forward with the rest of their legislation.

“They were good starting points to lay a foundation,” Shaheen said. “I’m very hopeful that we can get this legislation through.”

Shaheen said she is open to further tweaking the revamped version of the bill.

“We are still listening to stakeholders and responding to issues that come up,” she said. “We may be looking at other changes that may be made in the bill.”

Read the full article at Politico