Today, Vice President Biden will kick off five days of administration events that center around the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.
Biden announced the selection of 25 communities for up to $452 million in Recovery Act funding to boost energy efficiency building retrofits.
The Department of Energy's Retrofit Ramp-Up initiative will rally communities, governments, private-sector companies, and non-profit organizations in order to work on innovative programs for concentrated and broad-based retrofits in neighborhoods in towns.
Eventually, the Ramp-Up initiative hopes that these programs will spread throughout entire states.
The partnerships made through the Ramp-Up initiative will make energy efficiency available to hundreds of thousands of homeowners and businesses.
The models created through the program are expected to save households and businesses approximately $100 million annually in utility bills and create about 30,000 jobs around the country over the next three years.
The 40th anniversary of Earth Day is unique this year due to the historic clean energy investments in the Recovery Act.
Overall, $80 billion has been invested in the Recovery Act to be put towards clean energy and energy efficiency.
Biden is committed to making greater strides than ever in building a nationwide clean energy economy.
The 25 administrative projects announced by Biden will leverage an estimated $2.8 billion from other sources over the next 3 years to retrofit hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across the country.
The projects that will take place as a result of the Retrofit Ramp-Up awards in various communities are planned to begin in fall 2010.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu stated, "This initiative will help overcome the barriers to making energy efficiency easy and accessible to all."
Biden has high hopes for the Ramp-Up plan.
Until next time,
Hilary
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