Excerpt from Detroit News commentary 2/2/09

Home insulation plan would aid economy
by: Thomas Dietz

"President Barack Obama has proposed creating 78,000 jobs by weatherizing a million homes in his first year in office.  But our conservative estimates are that at least 60 million homes in the U.S. could benefit from weatherization, so a target of 1 million a year is minimal.  The program should weatherize at least 5 million homes per year at a cost of about $3,000 per household.

Weatherizing all the homes that need it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 300 billion tons per year.  It would save homeowners and renters an average of $150 to $450 per year, injecting an additional $750 million to $2.25 billion into household budgets the first year.  It would require a national investment of $15 billion per year, compared to the less than half a billion invested currently. That would create nearly 400,000 jobs.

Extra effort would be needed to make it easy for people to arrange and pay for the weatherization, and to make sure the work is done right. State and local governments could provide training and some form of licensing or certification for installers, as they currently do with electrical, heating and plumbing work.

Every state and most large communities have departments of housing and some have departments of energy. Most have weatherization programs in place that could be expanded. Working with the local construction industry and the building trades, as well as with environmental groups and community advocates, these agencies could quickly develop and implement weatherization programs that are tailored to local needs.

Few if any other elements of the stimulus package can be implemented as quickly and as flexibly, and no others offer as many immediate benefits with so few tradeoffs."

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