California Center for Sustainable Energy

New Hope for HOME STAR
By Jennifer Green

After several days of Congressional wrangling by Democrat and Republican leaders, HOME STAR has been tucked into an energy bill introduced July 28. HOME STAR is a proposed energy efficiency program that seeks to create jobs. According to Grist magazine, the program has the potential to create 168,000 jobs and save $9 billion in electricity bills over 10 years. The $5 billion rebate program is slated to last two years.

The Silver Star program will kick off HOME STAR with lower consumer energy costs through incentives for the purchase of energy-efficiency technologies. Ultimately, the bill aims to move residential property owners toward a whole home approach to energy retrofits through its Gold Star program, which will provide higher incentives of up to 50 percent of the cost for deeper, whole home retrofits.

HOME STAR dedicates 3.6 percent of its budget to administration, which includes quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC). In addition, California has penned a companion bill, Assembly Bill (AB) 2614, which will be enacted upon signature of the federal bill. It aims to provide funding to the California Energy Commission and California Public Utilities Commission for QA/QC implementation through workforce training. The bill also contains a provision for development of HOME STAR financing options.

Although the HOME STAR language remains intact, the bill it is attached to does not include a cap on greenhouse gas ( GHG) emissions. It does address the recent BP oil spill and includes provisions to minimize the possibility of similar disasters in the future.

To read the entire bill text, visit the Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act of 2010 website.

Jennifer Green is CCSE’s manager of policy and program coordination

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