National energy associations press Congress for $25M in appropriations for Rural Energy Savings Program
In a letter dispatched to leaders of the House and Senate Appropriation committees last week, five national energy associations recommended that Congress appropriate $25 million next year for the Rural Energy Savings Program (RESP).
Signatories on the letter included the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Environmental and Energy Study Institute, National Association of State Energy Officials, National Cooperative Business Association CLUSA, and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. The desire for RESP loans, they attested, is higher than ever before. This year, its manager, the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), has received letters of intent exceeding available funds by at least $45 million.
RESP is a program to provide no-interest loans to electric cooperatives, state financing entities, green banks, and others to aid residential and small business energy efficiency programs. Those help rural areas in particular, which tend to pay more for energy, offering them means of financing efficiency, renewable energy, and electrification improvements at no upfront cost.
Yet despite this, RESP received just $11 million this year.
“The benefits of RESP are wide-ranging,” the associations wrote. “For many families and small businesses that ultimately receive the funds, they immediately realize lower energy bills from insulation, air sealing, and new heating and cooling equipment. Some RESP-funded programs also finance distributed renewable energy generation, energy storage, electric vehicle supply equipment, irrigation improvements, and more—provided that improvements can be shown to be cost-effective to the end user.”
Beyond this, the organizations noted that RESP aids emissions reductions, broadband rollout, equitable distribution of energy benefits, and job creation. The latter, they noted, could be crucial in the wake of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic.
