You are invited to participate in the Obama Administration Green Energy Twitter Town Hall, a virtual discussion about the green energy policies adopted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to help improve energy efficiency in commercial buildings, multifamily complexes, and individual homes. The Twitter Town Hall will take place on Friday, February 21st at 2 p.m. EDT.
President Obama addressed the issue of climate change in his State of the Union address, and through his Climate Action Plan, has set the goal of cutting energy waste in our homes and businesses by 50 percent over the next 20 years. HUD, DOE and EPA have been implementing policies to meet this goal, leading to significant energy consumption reductions for both businesses and families.
For HUD and DOE, through the Better Buildings Challenge, President Obama called for leading CEOs and executives of U.S. companies, universities and state and local governments to commit to reducing the energy used across their building portfolios by 20 percent or more over ten years, and we are making real progress. Since last December’s announcement of the expansion of the Better Buildings Challenge to include multifamily housing, more than 50 multifamily partners have joined the Challenge, and each has committed to cutting energy waste across their entire portfolio by 20% within the next 10 years. That represents roughly 200 million square feet across nearly 300,000 homes.
EPA works with multifamily housing owners to provide energy conservation tools that can help cover the entire lifespan of multifamily buildings, from design and construction through operation. Through its ENERGY STAR program, units in low-rise or high-rise new construction (or substantial rehab) can be certified; and existing multifamily properties can benchmark energy and water use, as well as greenhouse gas emissions, using EPA’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager® tool.
As of the end of 2013, more than 105,000 newly constructed low rise units and 6,100 high rise units have earned EPA’s ENERGY STAR certification. More than 19,000 existing properties representing over 2.5 billion square feet of space are currently using EPA’s Portfolio Manager tool to measure and track GHG emissions, energy use, and water use.
To provide more information about the Climate Action Plan, the Better Buildings Challenge, ENERGY STAR and overall energy efficiency policies being adopted by their agencies, DOE Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency, Kathleen Hogan; HUD Senior Advisor for the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, Trisha Miller; and EPA Director of Climate Protection Partnerships, Elizabeth Craig, will be responding to your comments and questions live.
Topics may include:
- the economic, environmental and community impacts of the energy efficiency efforts of each agency;
- how public/private partnerships are producing long lasting energy efficiency programs; and
- your ideas for HUD, DOE, and EPA as they continue to implement the policies of the Climate Action Plan.
Please send your questions and comments to the hashtag #GreenEnergyQs now through Friday, February 21st, at 2 pm. Your questions and comments will be used to start the discussion and also will be fielded live.
The Twitter Town Hall will be streamed live on the HUD, DOE, and EPA websites.
We look forward to your participation.