The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) celebrated a significant milestone on Thursday. The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy announced the completion of the 1 millionth home weatherized under funds provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in 2009.
As I wrote earlier this week, ARRA, commonly known as the stimulus, included a one-time supplemental appropriation of $5 billion for the DOE’s Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). The cash infusion represented a five-fold increase over the WAP’s fiscal year 2008 funding levels, according to a brief published by the Center for American Progress (CAP) on September 28. As of January 2012, 612,390 homes or apartments had received energy retrofits courtesy of the stimulus.
The weatherization ramp-up delivered on dual objectives: providing low-income families relief from crippling energy bills during an economic slump, and stimulating domestic economic activity. As the authors noted in the CAP brief, households at or below 200% of the poverty line, 38 million American households, are eligible for weatherization services provided under the WAP.
According to DOE (PDF), every weatherized home saves its occupants an average of up to $400 annually on energy bills. Low-income families spend a higher percentage of their total income on their energy bills – nearly 14%, compared to some 3% for higher-earning households, according to the same DOE study.
The weatherization campaign also added jobs. DOE estimates that upgrading the 1 million homes – adding insulation to wall cavities and attics, caulking windows and doors, and sealing ducts – supported tens of thousands of American construction jobs. In many cases, more than 90% of the equipment and materials used in home energy retrofits (PDF) are made in the United States.
After a barb directed at the press regarding early coverage of the weatherization rollout, the Center for American Progress authors emphasize the jobs created by the program:
The press focused on negative, headline-grabbing stories about green jobs and the weatherization program in the beginning months when the program was ramping-up. Unfortunately, the follow up stories highlighting the successes of this program didn’t garner much attention.
If reporters had followed up they could have told their readers and listeners that state governments have been using a network of over 1,000 local agencies and more than 4,000 private contractors while employing an average of more than 12,000 workers per quarter to perform weatherization services across the country.
