UP to speed on US government iniatives on solar power

Bush and SBA Sit on their Hands Regarding the Energy Policy Act of 2005

from Solar Power Rocks! by SunnyD

So this is one of those super boring posts about politics… Sorry. Hopefully it will get you all riled up about Solar and how awesome it is and how the government does nothing to foster it.

So senator Kerry and Snowe have been consistently pressing the Small Business Administration on why they’ve done close to nothing concerning the Energy Policy Act that was signed into law by President Bush way back in August 2005. The bill was designed to have the SBA develop a government-wide program to assist small businesses in becoming more energy efficient and to educate them on available tax credits and federal program opportunities. Blah, they did nothing. Just pass the bill and don’t act on it. In this letter Kerry and Snowe bitch to the SBA about not having done anything, and rightfully so.

But hope is on the way! There is a new bill the two have introduced, the Small Business Energy Efficiency Act of 2007! I addition to doing a bunch of sweet, sweet new things like providing an energy audit program similar to that for individual homeowners (see the HERS section of this page), it would provide loans for small businesses to make renewable energy improvements.

So let’s say you’re a hotel and you spend $700 per month heating the water to wash your linens and run your showers. Let’s also assume if you got solar water heating that you would save $500 per month. Well if that installation costs $20K than you’re probably going to pass even though you may save a lot of money in the long run. Now let’s assume you can get a government loan from this program to make the installation and pay about $200 a month on it. Now it’s a no-brainer, saving $300 every month.

Sweet!