What is Weatherization? -Building the Green Economy with the Biden Climate Plan
Weatherization definition: what is weatherization
A key facet of Vice President Joe Biden’s climate plan involves increasing energy efficiency in housing by incentivizing sustainable building practices and retrofits to current buildings to make them more weather resistant and energy-efficient. This weatherization program would be a significant expansion of current efforts, seeking to both provide direct cash rebates and low-cost financing for families to upgrade and electrify home appliances, install more efficient windows, and otherwise cut residential energy bills while preparing homes for the harsher weather brought on by climate change. The Biden weatherization effort breaks down into three parts with a goal of weatherizing two million family homes, four million commercial buildings or public buildings and doing all of this in just four years:
Develop a dedicated workforce program to weatherize and upgrade four million commercial or public buildings to electric and efficient equipment; saving on energy costs for businesses and local governments while also providing economic stimulus across the country in local communities
Provide rebates and low-interest financing for families to do the same for their homes
A program to weatherize two million family homes, prioritizing low-income housing, over four years.
Weatherization and low income communities
The manufacturing and installation of the electric, efficient equipment needed for weatherization efforts mean not just lower heating bills for families and businesses, but the creation of an estimated one million jobs across the country. Also highlighted in the Biden plan is the goal of cutting the disproportionately high energy burden experienced by rural communities of color and low-income rural homes. The dual focus on creating economic opportunity across the country, including in rural communities, and in lowering the disproportionate burdens placed upon communities of color and low-income rural communities is important to highlight; Biden is seeking to provide economic stimulus for the communities that are suffering the most, directly in line with the proposals outlined in Washington State’s Green New Deal.
COVID-19’s spread has closed businesses across the country and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, putting our country firmly into a recession in the process. Our economy desperately needs the stimulus that the Biden weatherization program and other programs to build the green economy would provide. This is the perfect moment for the massive building retrofit project that we need to solve climate change. By converting our homes to electric equipment as part of moving to 100% clean electricity generation, we’ll all be able to heat our homes, use our appliances, and do so with the comfort of knowing we aren’t causing emissions.
Images used with permission from the Picturing Policy Project
Why weatherization
