USGBC Student Group Update
Hint at the Fall Agenda
From today's APA Advocate: “The president's FY 2010 budget provides nearly $26.4 billion for the Department of Energy, a 2 percent increase. In a combined effort with HUD, an Energy Innovation Fund was proposed to drive the creation of an energy-efficient housing market, which would include retrofitting older, inefficient housing to spur private lending in the residential sector.”
The main thing I want to focus on with the USGBC Student Group at the U is retrofitting old residential housing so this is both timely and encouraging. I'm still waiting for further instructions from the Utah Chapter before I can start promoting the group and working on its agenda but I definitely want to do something with this if we can. As much as I appreciate promoting sustainable building practices for new buildings, I've always thought retrofitting and renovation will create a much more significant impact.
Of course, the EIF is only a proposal at the moment, and it's for the 2010 budget, but that will probably work in our favor since it will give us the entire Fall semester to come up with a compelling approach.