Obama to propose US green retrofit plan
Greenwise Staff
3rd February 2011
Barack Obama will present a new green energy plan today, which will provide tax incentives to businesses that make their buildings more energy efficient.
According to reports, the
US president will announce the
Better Buildings Initiative at State College, Pennsylvania, today. The scheme would provide attractive
tax incentives to businesses and would be paid for through cuts in oil and gas subsidies. The move is intended to achieve a 20 percent improvement in
energy efficiency of
commercial buildings by 2020 and reduce energy bills and save energy for companies.
The cost of the scheme is not being made public yet, but is aimed at creating green jobs in an economy where unemployment stands at 9.4 per cent.
"This initiative has the potential to really unlock a large amount of
investment, some of which is sitting on the sidelines right now ... and create jobs at a time when that has to be our central focus," a senior administration official told
Reuters.
The announcement follows Obama’s State of the Union address last month in which he pledge to boost the development of the US cleantech market and double the US share of electricity from clean energy sources by 2035.
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