Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I would still like to talk about this amendment. And I want to thank both Senator Wyden for working with us on this amendment and also Senator Murkowski for working with us on this amendment. I appreciate their support.

This is an amendment Senator Hoeven and I have submitted together. I will describe it to you because I think it is such a good amendment. We want to make sure we get moving on this very important bill that I support, as well as these amendments.

The Nonprofit Energy Efficiency Act would provide assistance to nonprofit organizations to help make the buildings they own and operate more energy efficient.

Nonprofit organizations are the heart of our country and serve millions of Americans every day. Nonprofits include hospitals, schools, houses of worship--particularly supportive of this amendment--and youth centers. They face the choice of making facility improvements or serving more people, which is also difficult for them.

That choice is clear for so many organizations. Nonprofits often operate in older, less efficient buildings, and because of their nonprofit status, they cannot participate in energy efficiency programs despite the financial benefits of energy efficiency retrofits and other improvements.

This amendment is about allowing the Department of Energy to make grants of up to $200,000 for energy efficiency projects over the next 5 years. The amendment requires a 50-percent cost share and includes provisions to ensure that the projects achieve significant amounts of energy savings and are done in a cost-effective manner.

This amendment, the Klobuchar-Hoeven amendment, is fully offset. I appreciate the work of the committee and the committee staff on this amendment.

I urge my colleagues to support the Nonprofit Energy Efficiency Act amendment.

Before I yield the floor, I again want to thank Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman for their tireless efforts to move this important legislation forward. I believe energy efficiency is an area we can all agree is good for the economy, it is good for consumers, and it is an issue where we can find common ground, as you can see by the amendment I have done with Senator Hoeven.

Senator Hoeven from North Dakota knows a little bit about producing energy with their oil production, natural gas production, the biofuel production they share with Minnesota. We are some of the top biofuel producers in the country. But in our States we also believe in conserving energy and in energy efficiency. We believe this bill is a good bill and also that this amendment is a very good addition to the bill, as it allows nonprofits, such as places of worship, to also share in the energy efficiency program, and they are very interested in moving ahead with this amendment.

So I thank you. I thank the authors, and I thank the chair and the ranking member of the committee.

I yield the floor.

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