Energy Efficiency Improvement Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Chairman Upton, Chairman Whitfield, and Ranking Members Waxman and Rush, I thank all of you for working with us to move this bipartisan legislation today.

Mr. Whitfield, I want to particularly thank you for your leadership on the subcommittee.

Thank you as well to my colleague David McKinley for partnering with me on this issue. Mr. McKinley has an extraordinary background as an engineer and small business owner. He has real practical knowledge that has been extremely helpful, and he has brought invaluable expertise to our committee. I am grateful to him, and this whole body should be grateful to him for his partnership.

The bill today also includes some very good ideas advanced by other Members of Congress: Representatives Eshoo, Rogers, Matheson, Latta, and Castor. I thank all of them for their leadership on this issue.

Lastly, I want to thank House leaders, especially Majority Leader Cantor. He and his staff--Steve Stombres--have been enormously cooperative in dealing with some of the thorny problems that arise whenever there is a complicated piece of legislation to be considered. So thank you.

Like Mr. Whitfield, I have long believed that energy efficiency is an area in which we have common ground in what is too often a very divided Congress.

Mr. Whitfield, I thank you for focusing on that common ground.

Why is it so good?

Because saving energy does three things. It creates jobs. All of the energy efficiency labor is done by local folks who need work. It creates manufacturing jobs because 90 percent of the materials used in energy efficiency are manufactured in this country. It saves money and it improves the environment.

So we can, and do, disagree in this Congress on the causes of climate change and the best fuel mix to meet America's energy demands, but we can all agree that less is more. Whatever your fuel source, if you use less, you save money, and that is good for all of us concerned.

We can also agree that creating demand for American-made energy-efficient products will also create good jobs. In energy efficiency, our cheapest fuel requires, as I said, labor and manufactured goods that are made in America.

We can also all agree that cutting the energy bills of homeowners, businesses, and the Federal Government--therefore, the taxpayer--is a very good thing.

Mr. Speaker, Vermont, which I represent, has long been a leader in energy efficiency. My home State was the first to set up what was called an energy efficiency utility. That utility, Efficiency Vermont, has done outstanding work for the past 20 years.

Basically, what it acknowledges and understands is that a kilowatt saved is a cost avoided. Last year alone, Efficiency Vermont's work yielded a lifetime customer savings of $206 million for our small State in Vermont.

The Energy Efficiency Improvement Act is an important first step in making America more energy efficient. It includes the Better Buildings Act, also known as Tenant Star, which will drive private sector innovation in energy efficiency.

By the way, again, Mr. Whitfield, I appreciate this.

This is a public-private partnership. This is not a prescriptive arrangement. It requires good policy at the Federal level, with cooperation and opportunity-seizing at the private level.

Homes and buildings consume 40 percent of our energy in the United States. It is really huge. In commercial buildings, owners report that tenants consume up to 50 percent or more of the total energy output.

One of the challenges our commercial building owners and developers face has been the issue of split incentives. Building owners and renters are not always on the same page when it comes to energy performance. Part of the problem is that only one party is paying the energy bill. The other part of the problem is that, while we recognize energy efficient buildings through the Energy Star program, we have no similar recognition program for tenant spaces.

Our bill creates a voluntary Tenant Star recognition program for separate spaces in commercial buildings. When we combine Energy Star buildings with Tenant Star rentals, we can optimize energy efficiency in shortened payback periods.

A good example of this synergy can be found in Energy Star-certified Vermont Innovation Center, located in Burlington, Vermont. The Vermont Energy Investment Corporation, or VEIC, has its office in that building. VEIC took aggressive action to optimize the efficiency of its tenant space within the building. It converted the overhead fluorescent lighting to highly efficient LEDs and applied 6 inches of spray foam insulation to the exterior wells.

Making these improvements in an Energy Star building optimized an already efficient tenant space, but VEIC expects to save nearly $11,000 a year in energy savings. Where I come from, that is real money.

However, there is no recognition program for these improvements, and we don't know what else VEIC could be doing to increase energy savings. Under this bill, we will study the best ways to optimize commercial tenant spaces and then recognize those spaces with a new Tenant Star label.

By combining energy efficient tenant build-out with Energy Star buildings, we will double down on a successful program and optimize energy savings in commercial buildings.

In addition to Tenant Star, this legislation includes three other important energy provisions. Again, I thank Mr. Whitfield for his leadership in allowing other good ideas to be part of this legislation.

First, it is going to increase the energy efficiency of Federal Government data centers. They are huge energy consumers. Data centers use massive amounts of energy. This legislation will finally begin to address the enormous Federal energy bill for those facilities.

Second, this bill addresses a serious regulatory problem involving large-scale water heaters.

Sometimes we have an argument back and forth about regulations. What I love about this bill, among other things, is we are fixing a problem, not just fighting about it.

It is going to make needed changes to energy efficiency standards for large water heaters that are used in demand response programs. These water heaters act as residential energy storage devices and allow utilities to curb energy demand during peak hours.

So we are giving some of our rural electric cooperatives tools they need to keep the cost and energy demand down.

Finally, the bill will disclose the amount of energy consumed in federally leased buildings and begin benchmarking these buildings.

The Energy Efficiency Improvement Act, comprised of these four components, is an important first step towards energy efficiency, but more work remains. In the coming weeks, I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass the McKinley-Welch-Shaheen-Portman legislation, which will establish national model building codes. We also need to pass legislation to encourage performance contracting in Federal buildings and to streamline the Federal green schools project.

Energy efficiency, as Mr. Whitfield said, Mr. Speaker, is a bipartisan issue. I am extremely encouraged by the steps we are taking today. I look forward to working with the chairman, ranking member, and House leaders to bring more bills to the floor in the coming weeks.

I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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