WASHINGTON – Bipartisan legislation cosponsored and championed by U.S. Representative Ed Whitfield (KY-01), which would help bring down energy costs for Kentuckians while creating new jobs and improving energy efficiency, was approved by the House of Representatives today.
“With electricity demand expected to increase 30% by 2025, improving energy efficiency will be critical,” Whitfield said. “The Rural Energy Savings Program will go a long way in lowering costs for consumers while helping to better manage the demand for electricity.”
H.R. 4785, the Rural Energy Savings Program, was passed by the House today. The bill would establish a program which would help provide loans to homeowners and small business owners to make building changes which will improve energy efficiency. Whitfield is an original co-sponsor of the bill and helped to introduce the measure in March. The Congressman supported a measure, which was also passed by the House today, that suspends the program if it has a negative net effect on the national deficit.
The bill passed today creates a loan program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) which will provide loans to electric cooperatives (co-ops) to lend money to residential and small business consumers for the purpose of energy saving retrofitting. The bill allocates $4.9 billion over the next ten years to be loaned out to improve energy efficiency in private homes and businesses and, as a result, lower costs for consumers. Typical consumer loans will be between $1,500 and $7,000 and cover costs for sealing, insulation, heat pumps, HVAC systems, boilers, roofs and other improvements which have been proven to increase energy efficiency. After installing these upgrades, it is anticipated that most families will be able to save hundreds of dollars on their electricity bills every year.
The Rural Energy Savings Program will also help free up electricity on an already overcrowded electricity grid. In Kentucky, electricity providers face challenges in meeting the demands for electricity and also in building new power plants. The legislation introduced today will provide some relief and free up electricity to serve other areas of our economy, including manufacturing facilities that will bring new jobs.
In addition, the program is expected to create a significant number of new jobs. Once enacted, the Rural Energy Savings Program is anticipated to generate more than 10,000 jobs in its first year. In the years ahead, the program could employ, directly and non-directly, as many as 40,000 individuals in a given year. In addition, the bill includes ‘Made in the USA’ provisions which will be a boon to domestic manufacturing and construction industries and lead to the creation of new jobs.
