{"id":680156,"date":"2010-03-02T15:28:05","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T20:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/green.yahoo.com\/blog\/ecogeek\/1311\/obama-announces-cash-for-caulkers-program.html"},"modified":"2010-03-02T15:28:05","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T20:28:05","slug":"obama-announces-cash-for-caulkers-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/680156","title":{"rendered":"Obama announces Cash for Caulkers program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"cash-for-caulkers\" height=\"183\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/l.yimg.com\/a\/feeds\/us\/grn\/green_ecogeek\/cash-for-caulkers.jpg?resize=468%2C183\" width=\"468\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Today, President Obama announced the details of the HOMESTAR program, otherwise known as &#8220;Cash for Caulkers.&#8221;\u00a0 The president said the home retrofit program would create construction jobs, reduce the nation&#8217;s energy use equal to the output of three coal power plants, save participating households $200-$500 per year in energy costs and support energy efficiency innovation.<\/p>\n<p>The program basically includes rebates for energy efficiency improvements that are given at the time of purchase, much like how <a href=\"http:\/\/ecogeek.org\/automobiles\/2881-cash-for-clunkers-smothering-innovation\">&#8220;Cash for Clunkers&#8221;<\/a> worked.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>Here are some details of the program.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Small-scale upgrades like insulation, duct sealing, water heaters, HVAC units, windows, roofing and doors would be eligible for 50 percent rebates up to $1,500 or combined upgrade rebates of up to $3,000.<\/li>\n<li>Entire-home retrofits would be eligible for a rebate of $3,000 towards an energy audit and upgrades amounting to 20 percent energy savings.\u00a0 Any savings over that would be eligible for more rebates.<\/li>\n<li>Safeguards would be put in place to ensure that the upgrades actually improve efficiency:\u00a0 All contractors must be certified in energy-efficient installations and independent auditors will perform surveys to make sure upgrades were installed correctly and are saving energy. <\/li>\n<li>The program would also help state and local governments create financing options for these retrofits so more consumers can participate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The program will have to get through Congress, but hopefully with the promise of boosting the economy and creating jobs, it will be attractive enough to legislators to pass.<\/p>\n<p>via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/fact-sheet-homestar-energy-efficiency-retrofit-program\">White House release<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"1\" src=\"http:\/\/l.yimg.com\/a\/feeds\/us\/grn\/green_ecogeek\/7ldplnpcwlo\" width=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, President Obama announced the details of the HOMESTAR program, otherwise known as &#8220;Cash for Caulkers.&#8221;\u00a0 The president said the home retrofit program would create construction jobs, reduce the nation&#8217;s energy use equal to the output of three coal power plants, save participating households $200-$500 per year in energy costs and support energy efficiency innovation. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2496,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4821],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-680156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-2QWg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2496"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}