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Support for home efficiency, green vehicles in Senate bill

It's getting late in the day for Congress, and the green is fading

Details emerged yesterday on the slimmed down energy bill being proposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The so-called Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act does not include either limits on greenhouse gas emissions or a nationwide renewable electricity standard.

Instead, it offers a $5 billion incentive scheme for household energy upgrades for 2010 through 2012, a $3.8 billion rebate program for natural gas powered vehicles and a $400 million electric vehicle deployment program.

The rest of the Act, dubbed the “Oil Spill Bill”, aims to put in place extra controls on the oil industry – including extra payments for the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. And, it also proposes extra funds for land and water conservation.

Home Star

Division C within the proposed Act sets out a “Home Star Retrofit Rebate Program”, which will offer rebates for homeowners to install a range of clean energy and energy efficiency improvements.

The program will offer support for Gold Star or Silver Star improvements, with up to $8,000 per home available.

For Silver Star projects, rebates of $50 to $1,500 will be available for each item installed, up to an $8,000 maximum.

Items could include various insulation types, window replacements, heating system replacements, furnace upgrades, air conditioner or heat pumps, or water efficiency upgrades.

For Gold Star projects, which require a stricter set of qualifications for contractors, rebates of $3,000 will be available for homeowners that cut their energy consumption by 20%, with a further $1,000 available for each 5% cut in energy consumption after that, up to an $8,000 maximum or 50% of the project costs.

A Home Star Efficiency Loan Program is also to be set up, offering grants for States to provide financial assistance for energy improvements.

Vehicles

Under Division B of the proposed Act, a $3.8 billion rebate program is to be set up for natural gas vehicles.

This could see rebates of $10,000 up to $64,000 for vehicles depending on their size, with $7,500 rebates for mixed-fuel vehicles.

The proposals also include a grant program offering $50,000 per unit for refueling companies to install natural gas refueling infrastructure.

Senator Reid is also including the Promoting Electric Vehicles Act 2010 within the Act, which would set out a $400 million program to support deployment of electric vehicle recharging infrastructure.

The proposals would have the Secretary of State for Energy select between five and 15 communities to receive a share of the funding to put towards a roll-out of public recharging systems.

The Act would also seek to set up a grant system to support the training of mechanics, engineers, dealers and electricians needed to support the wider roll-out of electric vehicles.

Electricity used to recharge vehicles could be counted as “alternative fuel” under federal government support programs. The Act also sets out support for research and development in electric vehicle technology and a competition to develop a 500-mile battery.

And, guiding the process the Department of Energy would be required to draw up a major national plan for the deployment of electric vehicles.