Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I am delighted to rise in favor of the Isakson-Bennet amendment, the SAVE Act, and glad to acknowledge my hard work with Michael Bennet, who has been a great partner in this effort. I particularly want to acknowledge the patience of Senators Cantwell and Murkowski in allowing this bill and amendment to come forward. They have exemplified the type of patience that is necessary to do legislative work and do it well. Very simply, this bill allows the Federal Housing Administration, in the underwriting of a mortgage loan for a family applying for that loan, to consider in the value of the appraisal, the enhanced over- minimum standards that are put in for insulation and the enhanced over- minimum standard savings that come to the consumer from those energy standards being put in. So the borrower gets credit as if it is income from the savings that comes from putting in the insulation for the higher standards. The value of the property is enhanced in order for the borrower to be able to pay for the enhancements, and they are permanent. It is a win-win-win proposition. Why are we doing this? It already worked in the United States. It worked in the 1980s when the savings and loan industry made most of the mortgage loans. In Georgia, we had a program called Good Sense Housing. If you put in enhanced energy savings, you were given credit toward qualification on your loan. When we put them in, we had better thermal windowpanes, better results, and less consumption.…”