The Alliance to Save Energy (ASE) earlier this month commended the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for approving a bill that would codify energy-efficiency standards for appliances and other products as negotiated by manufacturers and efficiency advocates. It is one of several green-building bills undergoing congressional consideration.
The Implementation of National Consensus Appliance Agreements bill (INCAA) would supplant potentially inconsistent state requirements with a national standard that will provide regulatory certainty for affected manufacturers, enabling job-creating investments to proceed. Introduced earlier this year by Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), S.398, INCAA has won the co-sponsorship of 26 other senators.
The measure aims to improve standards for HVAC systems, including furnaces, heat pumps, and air conditioners, which take advantage of the latest technologies and their potential for energy efficiency. The bill also would improve standards for many already-covered home appliances, such as refrigerators, freezers, clothes washers, dryers, and dishwashers in order to maximize cost-effective efficiency savings. In addition, the bill would create standards for some previously overlooked areas, such as inefficient types of outdoor lighting.
The American Council for an Energy-Efficiency Economy estimates that INCAA would result in net savings to consumers of more than $43 billion by 2030 save nearly 5 trillion gallons of water annually by 2030, roughly the amount needed to meet the current needs of every customer in Los Angeles for 25 years.
Alliance President Kateri Callahan commented, "This important bill will help create jobs, reduce energy bills for consumers and businesses and ratify the appliance standards developed during negotiations among the appliance manufacturing community, efficiency advocates, states, and consumer groups. We urge the full Senate to take up the bill quickly, and we look forward to its enactment this year."
Other Bills Introduced
In other news, congressional lawmakers recently introduced various bills to promote green buildings across the United States. Here are summaries of the most recent legislation:
H.R. 482 -- Rep. Jim Cooper's (D-Tenn.) Water Heater Rating Improvement bill would require the U.S. Department of Energy to publish a rule establishing a uniform efficiency descriptor and accompanying test methods for water heaters, storage water heaters, instantaneous water heaters, and unfired water storage tanks (covered heaters) within 180 days of enactment. The efficiency descriptor and accompanying test method would apply to all water heating technologies in use and to future water heating technologies, and the efficiency standard would be denominated according to the efficiency descriptor. A comparable bill, S. 156, is undergoing consideration in the Senate.
H.R. 739 -- Under Rep. Michael Burgess' (R-Texas) bill, no federal or state requirement to increase energy-efficient lighting would require a hospital, school, day care center, mental health facility, or nursing home to install or use such energy-efficient lighting if the lighting contains mercury.
H.R. 945 -- According to this legislation, "It is the policy of the United States that executive branch agencies should take appropriate actions, to the extent consistent with applicable law, to expedite projects that will increase the production, transmission, or conservation of energy." Toward this end, there would be an interagency task force to do the following: monitor and assist Federal agencies in their efforts to comply with this bill; and monitor and assist such agencies in setting up appropriate mechanisms to coordinate federal, state, tribal, and local permitting in geographic areas where increased permitting activity is expected. Section 2 of the bill sets regional seasonal-energy-efficiency-ratio standards for various appliances.
