Fred Upton: “I do so to oppose the amendment because, as we all know, this amendment reauthorizes the Federal Weatherization…”

“I do so to oppose the amendment because, as we all know, this amendment reauthorizes the Federal Weatherization Assistance Program at $2.2 billion through 2020 and the State Energy Program at $375 million through 2020. But our feeling is that it is not needed because the Department of Energy's Weatherization Assistance Program is already extremely well funded. I support weatherization, as I think most of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle do, but Congress has been funding the program at or near the Department's requested levels. So this is, in essence, billions above in new spending on an existing program that the Department of Energy has not requested. I would note that the 2009 stimulus bill included an extra $5 billion to the Department of Energy for weatherization, roughly 17 times what was originally appropriated for that year. Furthermore, using experiments considered the gold standard for evidence, researchers from UC Berkeley, MIT, and the University of Chicago recently released a report on a first-of-its-kind field test of the Federal Weatherization Assistance Program. The study found that the costs of energy efficiency investments were about double the actual savings, that model-projected savings are 2\1/ 2\ times the actual savings, and that, even when accounting for the broader societal benefits of energy efficiency investments, the costs will substantially outweigh the benefits. The average rate of return is a minus 9\1/2\ percent annually.…”