In a recent speech given at Georgetown University, President Obama recently unveiled his Climate Action Plan, which aims at reducing carbon pollution and tackling climate change. The report is meant to be a blueprint for achieving steady, responsible, national, and international action to slow the effects of climate change in order to achieve a cleaner, more stable environment. In the report, President Obama referenced several initiatives that would have an impact on the multifamily affordable housing community. For instance:
- The Climate Action Plan proposes accelerating clean energy permitting with federal agencies setting new goals of reaching 100 megawatts of installed renewable capacity across the federally subsidized housing stock by 2020
- The plan proposes new strategies for cutting waste in homes, businesses, and factories, including establishing new standards for appliances and federal buildings in order to reduce carbon pollution by at least 3 billion metric tons cumulatively by 2030.
- Establishing a $23 million Multifamily Energy Innovation Fund within HUD designed to enable affordable housing providers, technology firms, academic institutions, and philanthropic organizations to test new approaches to deliver cost-effective residential energy
- Federal Housing Administration will convene representatives of the lending community and other key stakeholders for a mortgage roundtable to identify options for factoring energy efficiency into the mortgage underwriting and appraisal process upon sale or refinancing of new or existing homes
- Expanding the Better Buildings Challenge to multifamily housing by partnering with building owners and public housing agencies (PHAs) to cut energy waste
- Convening leaders to develop a framework and set of guidelines for consistently building safer buildings and infrastructure in order to inform the development of private-sector standards and codes
Click here to read the full report.
