MALTA, N.Y. - The Building Performance Institute Inc. (BPI) was included in President Obama’s proposed national weatherization incentive program, Home Star, unveiled in his speech on Job Creation and Economic Growth at The Brookings Institution in Washington, in early December.

A formal recommendation to Obama from the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB) cited BPI as a key contributor to the proposed Home Star program by providing training and accreditation for the development of a new home performance work force, as well as third-party quality assurance on the installed retrofit measures.

Also dubbed ‘Cash for Caulkers,’ Home Star is designed to encourage homeowners to weatherize their homes in order to create more than 500,000 new jobs. The proposed program would provide $23 billion in funding: $18 billion for homeowner incentives, $2 billion for quality assurance audits on efficiency projects, and $3 billion for retailer incentives and awareness-building activities.

“The training, individual certification, company accreditation, and inclusion of a robust quality assurance program aspects of the proposed national program are fundamental to protecting the dollars that will be invested in energy efficiency retrofits by both homeowners and the federal government,” said David Hepinstall, chairman of the BPI board of directors. “We are proud to be a part of this historic initiative and embrace the responsibility we are being entrusted with as the program comes to fruition.”

For more information, visit www.bpi.org.

Publication date: 01/25/2010