The Biden administration launched a new partnership with multiple cities and states on Friday to improve building efficiency and in doing so slash climate pollution. The 33 state and local governments comprising the “Buildings Performance Standards Coalition” represent one-fifth of the U.S. population and building footprint.
The administration is also proposing new, stronger standards for manufactured home efficiency. Efficiency standards for mobile homes have not been updated in almost three decades and the administration projects the updated standards will save mobile home residents thousands of dollars and prevent millions of tons of greenhouse gas pollution. The dangers of poorly-insulated mobile homes were on tragic display during Winter Storm Uri in Texas last year.
Mobile home manufacturers complain the upgraded standards could increase costs. “There are a lot of low-income people in these homes and the impact on them is exactly the right question,” Lowell Ungar, director of federal policy at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, told the Washington Post. “But putting them in homes in which they aren’t going to be able to afford the energy bills for the next few decades is not the solution to that problem.” (Cities and states: The Hill, WTGS; Mobile homes: Washington Post $; Climate Signals background: Feb. 2021 polar vortex breakdown)