Pew Commends U.S. Senate for Passage of Portman-Shaheen Efficiency Bill

WASHINGTON—The Pew Charitable Trusts applauds U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), and their bipartisan co-sponsors on Senate passage of the Energy Efficiency Improvement Act (S. 535).

The bill would spur the use of efficient technologies in the residential, commercial, and industrial energy sectors of the U.S. economy and create jobs.

Phyllis Cuttino, director of Pew’s clean energy program, issued this statement:

“The Portman-Shaheen efficiency bill is an important step in making American businesses more competitive. Among its many provisions, the bill includes steps to strengthen the Department of Energy’s role in supply-side energy efficiencies in the manufacturing sector.

“Industrial energy efficiency technologies such as combined heat and power and waste heat to power, which capture and recycle waste heat, dramatically reduce the cost of energy and provide greater resilience during extreme weather, natural disasters, and grid blackouts. Large manufacturers, refineries, hospitals, universities, and military bases are putting these highly efficient systems to work to ensure reliability, save money, reduce pollution, and protect customers.

“The passage of the Portman-Shaheen bill, coupled with reforms that remove restrictions on and increase incentives for industrial energy efficiency technologies, will allow many more facilities, particularly mission critical institutions that cannot afford to be offline, to take advantage of these common-sense capital improvements.

“Policies supporting the expansion of industrial energy efficiency have garnered support from members of both parties. The provisions that passed today come from H.R. 2126, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives with overwhelming support in the last Congress. We urge the House to again take up and pass this bill as an essential first step in expanding the deployment of these proven and highly efficient technologies.”

A recent study by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy found that by 2030, the Portman-Shaheen proposal has the potential to save American consumers $14 billion and support a net increase of 172,000 jobs.

The Pew Charitable Trusts is driven by the power of knowledge to solve today’s most challenging problems. Learn more at www.pewtrusts.org/cleanenergy.