GREEN FOR ALL STRONGLY SUPPORTS PRESIDENT OBAMA’S CALL FOR PASSAGE OF HOME STAR IN JOBS LEGISLATION

OAKLAND, CA – President Barack Obama today renewed his support for a nationwide program to make American homes more energy efficient. Speaking at Savannah Technical College, the President said that the HOME STAR program "will make our economy less dependent on fossil fuels, helping to protect the planet for future generations."  We strongly support HOME STAR and will work with the president and Congress to ensure its passage.
 
“The President today took an important step toward energy independence with his renewed push to pass HOME STAR as part of a new jobs bill.  We think this is the right thing to do in order to begin building a new clean energy economy that reduces poverty and pollution at the same time,” said Green For All CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins
 
As the President noted, HOME STAR would not only help the planet, it would help the economy as well: "I want to emphasize that HOME STAR will also create business and spur hiring up and down the economy," the President said.

The program would provide rebates to consumers who invest in new energy efficient appliances, weatherize their homes, or purchase other efficient technologies for their home. And with national unemployment levels at almost 10 percent, HOME STAR is an urgent need.

It is designed as a fast-acting, short-term, job creation program that will drive new private investment into the hard hit construction and manufacturing sectors, while saving consumers money on their energy bills.

 As currently proposed in the Senate’s Jobs Agenda for America, it would invest $6 billion in the form of incentives, matched by private investment to generate three million home retrofits, and 168,000 jobs.  The President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board has unanimously recommended HOME STAR as a strategy for near term job creation.

 Among the other benefits are:

• Job creation from HOME STAR will be concentrated on the struggling construction and manufacturing sectors of the US economy.
• HOME STAR will help over three million American families to retrofit their homes for energy efficiency and save them as much as $9.5 billion over 10 years.
• HOME STAR will remove the equivalent of 615,000 cars from the road, or four 300MW power plants from operation.
• The HOME STAR program dedicates $200 million to provide access to low interest financing, making projects' cash flow positive from day one.
• The majority of manufactured goods used in HOME STAR retrofits are made in the USA, averaging well over 90% domestic production, supporting a building materials manufacturing sector that is operating at less than 60% of available capacity with 24.5% unemployment

 
 At Green For All we believe that passage of HOME STAR will create quality career-pathway jobs, reduce pollution, and save consumers money; it’s an essential step.