(Washington,
D.C.) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) announced that the City of
Seattle, Washington has been awarded a $20 million grant through the U.S.
Department of Energy’s Retrofit Ramp-up initiative to retrofit local homes and
businesses to make them more energy-efficient and save money for their owners
and occupants. Senator Murray worked with the Obama Administration to include
clean-energy investments in the Recovery Act that would create jobs and boost
the economy.
“Washington
families know that they are allowing hundreds of dollars a year to float away
through their windows, roofs and doors – but they simply can’t afford the
up-front costs that would save them money down the road ,” said Senator
Patty Murray. “Thanks to this grant, more people in Seattle will be put to
work, and more homes and businesses will get the retrofitting they need to save
money on their energy costs.”
The
City of Seattle, through its Neighborhood Weatherize Every Building Initiative,
seeks to drastically reduce carbon emissions by fostering a clean energy economy
that relies on energy efficiency as a primary source of power. The City will
partner with more than 40 public, private and nonprofit organizations and will
target a variety of downtown Seattle neighborhoods including single-family
homes as a primary focus, with a secondary focus on retrofit efforts for
multifamily, small business (including grocery stores, restaurants), large
commercial, hospital/institutional and municipal facilities.
The
City plans to promote residential retrofits and reduce carbon emissions, while
utilizing a neighborhood-based approach to identify, finance, deliver, and
monitor energy efficiency retrofits. The awards are the competitive
portion of DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program,
which was funded for the first time under the Recovery Act to help state,
local, and tribal communities make strategic investments in improving energy
efficiency, reduce energy use and fossil fuel emissions.
As
a senior member of the Senate committee overseeing energy funding, Senator
Murray worked to ensure that investments in energy efficiency were included in
the Recovery Act. Senator Murray voted to pass the Recovery Act on
February 13th. The bill was signed into law by President Obama on February 17th,
2009.
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