Biden administration announces new Energy Star standards, plans for emissions targets
Source: Washington Post
On Monday afternoon, the Biden administration announced a major push aimed at cutting carbon emissions from federal buildings and from homes by setting new efficiency standards and investing in innovative research. The White House said that, for the first time, the government will develop “building performance standards” for federal facilities.
It will also establish new Energy Star standards for heat pumps and invest in programs meant to boost adoption of the potentially emissions-saving technology. “I think the building sector is often overlooked for the tremendous potential it presents,” said Ali Zaidi, the deputy national climate adviser at the White House. “We’ve turned on approaches all over the government to chase that opportunity.”
The moves — which occurred across the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Council on Environmental Quality and the General Services Administration — are part of the White House’s ambitious climate agenda, which calls for the United States to achieve 100 percent clean electricity by 2035. And unlike some administration initiatives, such as the Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard, these changes shouldn’t require congressional approval.
The White House has not yet set a timeline for developing building performance standards or released any specific benchmarks, saying only that it plans to “establish metrics, targets, and tracking methods to reach federal carbon emissions goals” for federal buildings, which the General Service Administration says total about 186 million square feet. Some state and local jurisdictions (such as New York and Washington state) have adopted building performance standards — and fossil fuel industry groups have pushed back against such efforts.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/05/17/biden-energy-efficiency/
Full headline: Biden administration announces new Energy Star standards, plans for emissions targets for federal buildings
