Ideas for the Biden-Harris Administration to Exceed Its Green Goals for Affordable Housing, Federal Buildings, and Sector-Wide Decarbonization
Top 3 vote-getters:
A Building Energy Performance Standard for Federal Buildings
Contributors: Veronique Bugnion, Ph.D., Carolyn Sarno-Goldthwaite
Summary: Proposes to leverage and strengthen the Fossil Fuel-Generated Energy Consumption Reduction rule, which aims to eliminate fossil-fuel use in all new and extensively renovated federal buildings by 2030. By updating this rule to establish efficiency targets for all Federal buildings, not just new ones or those undergoing extensive renovations, the federal government can drive down emissions in its building stock, increase the resilience of its assets, and provide a policy example for a national building energy performance standard.
Contributors: Bracken Hendricks, Jessica Bailey, Bali Kumar, Ashok Gupta, Colin Bishopp
Summary: Proposes that all relevant agencies should issue new and updated C-PACE guidance to facilitate more than $100 billion in private investment in multifamily housing and long-term care facilities, where high energy costs disproportionately impact low-income communities of color. The total potential is more than $600 billion in private investment across all sectors.
Contributor: Jason Hartke, Ph.D.
Summary: Proposes to scale use of Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPCs), which enable retrofits without any upfront capital costs, by creating a federally-managed onramp for state and local buildings. By creating a federal onramp for states and localities to add their applicable public buildings, the government would effectively be creating a massive project aggregator for the ESPC tool. The Biden-Harris Administration, by catalyzing this type of public building aggregation, could pursue a 10x goal, or $40 billion ESPC/UESC investment, which would have significant job creation and GHG reduction impacts.
Nominees:
Require Mortgages Backed by Government-Sponsored Entities to Meet a Minimum Energy Efficiency and Climate Resilience Threshold
Contributors: Jeff Perlman, Jon Braman
The Healthy Home Loan Program: A Clean Energy and Clean Drinking Water Financing Program for Low-Income Homeowners
Contributors: Colin Bishopp, Jim Barrett, Ph.D.
Federal 'Green Button Initiative 2.0’ – DOE Establishes Best Practices for Energy Data Access & Creates Data Innovation Working Group
Contributors: Kara Saul Rinaldi, Michael Murray
Federal Performance Contracting Challenge: Set Performance Contracting Goal such as the Performance Contracting Challenge (PCC) during the Obama Administration
Contributors: Jennifer Schafer, Kate Lynch
View the whole sortable database here.
