NASEO News
FEDERAL UPDATE
NASEO Endorses
10 Million Solar Roofs Act of 2010
On behalf of NASEO, Chair Philip
Giudice recently sent a letter to the
Honorable Bernie Sanders expressing
support for the 10 Million Solar Roofs
Act of 2010 (S. 3460). The solar
legislation would facilitate the use of
solar energy for homeowners, businesses,
schools and other types of facilities
utilizing solar installations of less
than 1 megawatt. Please
click here to read the letter.
Senator
Lugar's Practical Energy and Climate
Plan
U.S. Senator Dick Lugar recently
introduced
Practical Energy and Climate Plan,
S.3464, which attempts to prioritize
targeted policies that can bring real
money and energy savings while providing
flexible frameworks that encourage
investment in a more secure energy
future. The legislation focuses on
reducing foreign oil dependence, energy
efficiency, diverse domestic power, and
a measurement and review and energy and
climate programs. U.S. Department
of Energy Secretary Chu responded to the
Senator's introduction of the
legislation in a
letter of appreciation for the
Senator's contribution to the overall
effort of moving toward a clean energy
future. Please
click here for a section-by-section
outline of the legislation.
USDA Officials
Testify on Rural Energy Programs Before
House Committee on Agriculture
Officials from the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development
Program testified before Congress on
June 9, 2010 to discuss the
implementation of
Title IX of the 2008 Farm Bill which
focuses on energy issues. In her
testimony to the committee Cheryl Cook,
Deputy Under Secretary, Rural
Development, USDA said "America's energy
system is in transition. For
environmental, economic, and national
security reasons alike, America needs to
diversify our fuel supply, reduce our
dependence on imported oil, reduce our
carbon footprint, and develop our
abundant renewable energy resources."
The testimony highlighted the
possibility for energy produced in rural
America to be consumed in population
centers, thereby diversifying the farm
and making it more productive.
Please
click here to read the Under
Secretary's testimony.
USDA Offers Help
to Farmers to Pay for Energy Audits
The U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) Natural Resources Conservation
Service (NRCS) has announced a program
to encourage and facilitate energy
audits at American farms. NRCS offers
financial assistance to help cover costs
for a detailed energy audit. NRCS will
assess the energy consumption from the
farm's cooling/heating system,
milking/feeding equipment, lighting,
pumps and machines located in the
production buildings of any agricultural
operation. The information will be
analyzed and measured to reduce
consumption and ways to more effectively
utilize energy resources will be
recommended. To read more about the
program, please
click here.
More than $60
Million in Recovery Act Funding to
Expand Local Energy Efficiency Efforts
in 20 Communities
The U.S. Department of Energy
recently announced that 20 communities
have been selected for more than $60
million in funding under the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act to
implement local energy efficiency and
renewable energy programs that will
reduce energy use by American homes,
vehicles, and businesses. Local
governments, nonprofit organizations and
quasi-governmental organizations are
among the recipients for the competitive
grants, administered under the
Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency
and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG)
program. Please
click here for more information,
including a list of communities that
have been selected for awards under the
competitive EECBG program.
New "Compendium of
Best U.S. Practices" in Energy
Efficiency, Renewable Energy Aims to
Drive Deployment Worldwide
Three leading energy efficiency and
renewable energy organizations -- the
Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
Partnership (REEEP, an international
body), the Alliance to Save Energy
(Alliance) and the American Council on
Renewable Energy (ACORE) -- have jointly
released their Compendium of Best
Practices, Sharing Local and State
Successes in Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy from the United States,
in which state and local governments
share the key elements of their
programs, lessons learned and what made
each program a success. Please
click here for more information and
a link to the report.
The Power to
Compete: Benchmarking the
Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act on
Clean Energy Innovation and
Competitiveness
A new policy brief released by the
Breakthrough Institute and Americans for
Energy Leadership provides the first
independent analysis of how the
Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act would
impact U.S. competitiveness in the
global clean energy industry,
benchmarking its provisions against key
policy components for technological
innovation and industrial development in
the low-carbon power and transportation
sectors. The policy brief, titled
"The Power to Compete: Analysis of Key
Clean Energy Technology and
Competitiveness Provisions in the
Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act of
2010," assesses the proposal's key
technology provisions, including
research and innovation, manufacturing,
and domestic market demand -- the
central pillars of a national clean
energy competitiveness strategy -- as
well as supportive mechanisms in
infrastructure, workforce development,
and industry cluster formation.
Please
click here for more information and
a link to the briefing.
MEETINGS AND WEBINARS
Commercial
Buildings Consortium (CBC) Briefing
NASEO's Executive Director, David
Terry, will be speaking on Friday, June
18 at a luncheon hosted by the High
Performance Building Congressional
Caucus Coalition's during the Caucus's
High-Performance Building Week. NASEO is
the administrator of the Commercial
Building Consortium (CBC) and a member
of the project's steering committee. The
briefing will cover the Commercial
Buildings Initiative's (CBI) progress to
date, from the perspectives of CBI and
CBC partners. The luncheon will take
place on Friday, June 18, 2010, from
12:30-2:00 p.m. at 2325 Rayburn House
Office Building in Washington, DC.
Please
click here to read more about the
week's events.
Buy American &
Davis Bacon Webinar Information on the
OWIP Website
Recorded versions of the recent
webinars on both Davis Bacon Act and the
Buy American provision of the Recovery
Act are now available online. You
can access a recorded version of the
Davis Bacon webinar as well as the
PowerPoint presentations for both
webinars at:
Webinar June
16 or 17: Guidelines for States
Conducting Evaluations of ARRA-Funded
SEP Activities
On June 16 and 17, the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) is offering a
webinar for state officials interested
in contracting or conducting evaluations
of their states' ARRA-funded SEP
activities. The Office of Weatherization
and Intergovernmental Programs (OWIP)
has developed recommended standards to
guide such evaluations, based on the
priorities and standards included in the
SEP National Evaluation. The SEP
Evaluation Guidelines were issued in
March of this year. This webinar will
describe the SEP Evaluation Guidelines
and how to apply them. The session is
geared toward state officials who are
planning to conduct or sponsor their own
state-level evaluation and would like a
better understanding of OWIP's standards
for such studies.
The webinar will take place on
Wednesday, June 16, from 1:00 to 2:30
p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) and
again on Thursday, June 17, from 3:30 to
5:00 p.m. EDT. The speaker will be Nick
Hall, a highly experienced program
evaluator and principal of TecMarket
Works consulting firm. Mr. Hall worked
for several years in the Illinois Energy
Office early in his career, and has been
involved for many years in evaluating
state energy efficiency and renewable
energy programs.
This Webinar is free of charge, but
you will need to register in advance to
obtain a URL for the presentation and
call-in phone number. You can register
online at
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/422894835
for the June 16 session and at
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/868474235
for the June 17 session. If you have
questions that you would like addressed
during the Webinar, please send them to
Nick Hall at TecMarket Works
(NPHall@TecMarket.net) by June 11.
2010 National
Town Meeting on Demand Response and
Smart Grid
The National Town Meeting on Demand
Response and Smart Grid will be held
June 23-24, 2010 at the Renaissance
Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC.
It is the premier demand response and
smart grid event in the US. It brings
together stakeholders from utilities,
technology companies, ISOs, Congress,
federal and state agencies,
environmental groups, and research and
consulting firms for two days of
in-depth discussions on a broad slate of
topics. The 2010 National Town Meeting
will feature speakers who take the
measure of the state of the industry,
indicate what's to come in the year
ahead, and report on best practices and
projects in the field.
The National Town Meeting on Demand
Response and Smart Grid is a nonprofit
event put on by the Demand Response
Coordinating Committee (DRCC), a
nonprofit organization whose mission is
to facilitate the exchange of expertise
and information on demand response and
smart grid. For more information,
contact Paul Pietsch, Demand Response
Coordinating Committee (DRCC),
info@demandresponsecommittee.org or
visit
http://www.demandresponsetownmeeting.com/home/.
Energy Codes
2010: The Future is Now!
Energy Codes 2010 will be held July
19-22, 2010 at the Westin Charlotte
Hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Energy Codes 2010 will provide hands-on
training and face-to-face networking
through various training activities with
other members in the energy codes
community. It represents a unique
opportunity to bring together state
energy office representatives and
members of the building industry and to
discuss current building energy code
issues and receive consistent technical
training on building energy codes and
standards. Please
click here for more information
including the preliminary agenda and
online registration.
STATE AND LOCAL NEWS
Colorado Governor
Urges Successor to Embrace the New
Energy Economy
Governor Ritter recently told the
Colorado Independent that the state's
new-energy economy must continue to grow
whether a Republican or a Democrat is
elected governor this year. Ritter made
the statement after signing into law the
final bills of his four-year term today,
capping his legacy under the banner of
the new energy economy. Earlier, Ritter
harkened back to his State of the State
address and said he had made good on his
promise to create a new energy economy.
He pointed to 1,500 clean-energy
companies operating in the state, 32 of
which his administration was directly
involved in recruiting. The Governor's
office reported that those 32 companies
brought 6,500 jobs to the state. To read
more about the governor's outgoing
sentiments, please
click here.
Number of Minnesota
Homes Weatherized Jumps 15 Percent in
May
The number of Minnesota homes
weatherized under the federal
Weatherization Assistance Program is up
more than 15 percent, according to new
figures from the Minnesota Department of
Commerce's Office of Energy Security
(OES). As of May 31, nearly 7,500
homes had been weatherized in the state
- up from 6,454 homes at the end of
April, according to OES, which
administers the program. Of the
homes completed through May, 5,407 were
funded through the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.
That number represents 32 percent of the
16,856 homes the program is expected to
serve via ARRA funding by spring 2012.
States must reach 30 percent of their
goal before the U.S. Department of
Energy (DOE) will release the second
half of their funding. Please
click here to read more.
|
