U.S. to target federal carbon emissions

The Biden administration Monday announced a major push aimed at cutting carbon emissions from federal buildings and homes by setting new efficiency standards and investing in innovative research.

The White House said that, for the first time, the government will develop "building performance standards" for federal facilities. It will also establish new Energy Star standards for heat pumps and invest in programs meant to increase adoption of the potentially emissions-saving technology.

"I think the building sector is often overlooked for the tremendous potential it presents," said Ali Zaidi, the deputy national climate adviser at the White House. "We've turned on approaches all over the government to chase that opportunity."

The moves -- which will occur across the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Council on Environmental Quality and the General Services Administration -- are part of the White House's ambitious climate agenda, which calls for the United States to achieve 100% clean electricity by 2035. And unlike some administration initiatives, such as the Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard, these changes shouldn't require congressional approval.

The White House has not yet set a timeline for developing building performance standards or released any specific standards, saying only that it plans to "establish metrics, targets, and tracking methods to reach federal carbon emissions goals" for federal buildings, which the General Service Administration says total about 186 million square feet. Some state and local jurisdictions, such as New York and Washington state, have adopted building performance standards -- and fossil fuel industry groups have pushed back against such efforts.

But Steven Nadel, the executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, says the administration's move would put the federal government among the leaders in this area. "It will help reduce the federal bill, which is good," said Nadel. "It will also encourage other jurisdictions to consider them."

The new Energy Star standards are expanding to include electric-vehicle chargers in commercial settings and a cold-climate designation for heat pumps, which are used to heat or cool homes and buildings. Nadel said that when Energy Star guidelines are adjusted, manufacturers "tend to respond with products that meet those standards."

"The need for heat pumps is clear," said Jeffrey Schub, the executive director of the Coalition for Green Capital, an organization aiming to accelerate investment in clean-energy technologies. "Electric heat pumps are the key central technology for decarbonizing buildings, especially households."

Heat pumps most commonly work by drawing in warm air and then either circulating it to heat a home or expelling it to cool it. That transfer process is generally much more efficient than boilers, furnaces, radiators or other traditional heating systems, which directly warm the air.

While exact energy reductions depend on a number of factors, such as the underlying electricity grid or building insulation, a Sierra Club analysis found that replacing a gas furnace and water heater with an electric heat pump could reduce a household's heating emissions by more than 45% over a decade.

Heat pumps have some drawbacks. For example, they operate less efficiently in colder climates, though the technology has improved in recent years and the Department of Energy is also launching a cold climate heat pump challenge to help further gains in that space. One of the biggest hurdles to heat pump adoption, though, are the upfront costs -- a problem that the administration has proposed addressing through a "clean energy accelerator" program. But that would need congressional approval.

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