{"id":355149,"date":"2010-02-23T16:59:14","date_gmt":"2010-02-23T21:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/restorationandresilience\/?p=206"},"modified":"2010-02-23T16:59:14","modified_gmt":"2010-02-23T21:59:14","slug":"can-a-jobs-bill-increase-resilience-in-louisiana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/355149","title":{"rendered":"Can a Jobs Bill Increase Resilience in Louisiana?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night, the Senate\u00a0cleared a major hurdle towards passing a $15 billion jobs bill<\/a>. This seems to be just the first of several jobs bills that the Senate will consider in the coming weeks and months. Among these bills we're\u00a0keeping a close eye on\u00a0the "Home Star<\/a>" program. We strongly urge senators to\u00a0press for\u00a0resilience measures<\/strong> in the Home Star program, as they\u00a0could create construction jobs and bolster\u00a0flood mitigation\u00a0in Louisiana and other coastal states<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Home Star, formerly known as "Cash for Caulkers", will soon be introduced on the Senate floor by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA). The program aims to kill\u00a0two birds with one stone. First, it will put construction workers, who are really bearing the brunt of job losses in this great recession, back to work installing energy retrofits. Second, it will\u00a0boost energy efficiency<\/strong> in homes, which will\u00a0lower household\u00a0utility bills and\u00a0curb greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

At Restoration and Resilience, we\u00a0think this a great start, but think that a huge opportunity is being missed: Home resilience. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Coastal<\/a><\/p>\n

Coastal and Navigable River Counties in the United States (Source: Columbia University)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Louisiana gets more than\u00a0sixty inches of rain a year, is vulnerable to\u00a0hurricanes and storm surge, and loses a football field of\u00a0its coastal wetlands\u00a0every half-hour. Green retrofits\u00a0and home weatherization funds\u00a0from a jobs bill should take on a whole new meaning in a place so shaped by water.<\/strong> With more\u00a0than 150 million Americans living in coastal and river valley counties subject to periodic storm and flood disasters, we think that inclusion of flood mitigation measures would be a smart investment in safety and attract broad support across the country.<\/p>\n

We're working with the SmarterSafer<\/a> coalition to include resiliency and disaster mitigation work as part of Home Star's eligible activities. As contractors go in to weatherize homes,\u00a0there is\u00a0great opportunity to include storm and flood mitigation improvements in addition to energy efficiency repairs. In fact, many\u00a0storm and flood mitigation measures can\u00a0improve the\u00a0benefits of efficiency upgrades with little extra work by trained contractors.<\/p>\n

Can a jobs bill increase resilience in Louisiana? Yes, it can and it should.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night, the Senate\u00a0cleared a major hurdle towards passing a $15 billion jobs bill. This seems to be just the first of several jobs bills that the Senate will consider in the coming weeks and months. Among these bills we're\u00a0keeping a close eye on\u00a0the "Home Star" program. We strongly urge senators to\u00a0press for\u00a0resilience measures in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4273,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-355149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}