[Senate Hearing 117-685]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 117-685


 ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE WITH ENERGY-EFFICIENT AND RESILIENT HOUSING

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                   BANKING,HOUSING,AND URBAN AFFAIRS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                                   ON

  EXAMINING HOW WE CAN ADDRESS HOUSING AFFORDABILITY, LOWER PEOPLE'S 
    ENERGY COSTS, AND REDUCE CLIMATE CHANGE RISK TO OUR COMMUNITIES

                               __________

                              MAY 18, 2022
                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban 
                                Affairs
                                

                  [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                                


                 Available at: https://www.govinfo.gov/
                 
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                    
55-777 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2024  


            COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS

                     SHERROD BROWN, Ohio, Chairman

JACK REED, Rhode Island              PATRICK J. TOOMEY, Pennsylvania
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey          RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama
JON TESTER, Montana                  MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia             TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts      MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland           THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada       JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
TINA SMITH, Minnesota                BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona              CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  JERRY MORAN, Kansas
RAPHAEL G. WARNOCK, Georgia          KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
                                     STEVE DAINES, Montana

                     Laura Swanson, Staff Director

                 Brad Grantz, Republican Staff Director

                       Elisha Tuku, Chief Counsel

                 Dan Sullivan, Republican Chief Counsel

                      Cameron Ricker, Chief Clerk

                      Shelvin Simmons, IT Director

                        Pat Lally, Hearing Clerk

                                  (ii)


                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                         TUESDAY, MAY 18, 2022

                                                                   Page

Opening statement of Chairman Brown..............................     1
        Prepared statement.......................................    25

Opening statements, comments, or prepared statements of:
    Senator Toomey...............................................     3
        Prepared statement.......................................    26

                               WITNESSES

Ruth Ann Norton, President and CEO, Green & Healthy Homes 
  Initiative.....................................................     5
    Prepared statement...........................................    28
    Responses to written questions of:
        Senator Cortez Masto.....................................    74
        Senator Warnock..........................................    77
Katie Tubb, Research Fellow, Center for Energy, Climate, and 
  Environment, The Heritage Foundation...........................     8
    Prepared statement...........................................    55
Krista Egger, Vice President, Building Resilient Futures, 
  Enterprise Community Partners..................................     9
    Prepared statement...........................................    65
    Responses to written questions of:
        Senator Crapo............................................    79
        Senator Cortez Masto.....................................    79

              Additional Material Supplied for the Record

Statement submitted by The BuildStrong Coalition.................    81
Statement submitted by Ryan M. Colker, Vice President, 
  Innovation, International Code Council, and Executive Director, 
  Alliance for National and Community Resilience.................    86

                                 (iii)

 
 ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE WITH ENERGY-EFFICIENT AND RESILIENT HOUSING

                              ----------                              


                         TUESDAY, MAY 18, 2022

                                       U.S. Senate,
          Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met at 10 a.m., via Webex and in room 538, 
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sherrod Brown, Chairman of 
the Committee, presiding.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN SHERROD BROWN

    Chairman Brown. The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, 
and Urban Affairs will come to order. Thank you to our three 
witnesses. We are in the hybrid format. Witnesses are in person 
today. Thank you for making the effort to do that. At least a 
number of our colleagues will likely ask questions from their 
offices.
    I want to first wish a quick and speedy and full recovery 
to our colleague, Senator Van Hollen, a valued Member of this 
Committee and of this body. He has been so active on these 
issues. We think of him and his family this morning.
    This morning the Banking and Housing Committee will examine 
how we can address a crisis facing millions of families--
housing affordability. When we do this right, we lower people's 
energy costs and, we reduce the risk to our communities from 
climate change.
    Outdated HVACs and appliances and poor insulation and homes 
needing renovation cost Americans money, lots of money, on 
their gas and electric bills, and they contribute to climate 
change. Twenty percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions come 
from residential buildings.
    At the same time, most homes in the United States have some 
risk of climate change-induced disasters. Fully one-third of 
homes, 35 million of them, are considered to be at high risk.
    Ask any family who has lived through a flood or a wildfire 
how devastating those disasters can be--the expense, the 
stress, the lost memories.
    Today we will hear from witnesses discussing how we make 
our homes safer, more energy- and water-efficient, more 
resilient to natural disasters. Homes that we build or renovate 
with these goals in mind--manufactured housing, single-family 
homes, big apartment buildings--are healthier, and they save on 
energy.
    We know we need more homes in this country. For too long, 
we have not built enough housing to keep up with demand.
    In our hearings, we have heard previously from mayors in 
Akron, Ohio, and Senator Tester's and Senator Daines' Bozeman, 
Montana, and other communities, that we have far fewer homes 
than we need, nearly 4 million, by one estimate.
    As a Nation, we have not invested in our affordable housing 
infrastructure. Barriers to new housing at the local level 
impede development, deny families access to opportunity, and 
keep prices artificially high. Secretary Fudge joined 
Congressman Beatty and me in Columbus this week to discuss some 
of those issues.
    The result is that a multitude of policy decisions, from 
the legacy of Jim Crow, to redlining, even to more recent rules 
and regulations, have helped create a national housing crisis 
that is pushing up costs for families across the country.
    Even before the pandemic, we know and we have said many 
times in this Committee a quarter of all renters pay more than 
half of their incomes in housing, again, even before the 
pandemic, and we know what happens to those families when one 
thing goes wrong.
    Due to a lack of funding, Federal housing assistance 
reaches only one-fourth of the renters who need it. We know 
that wages have not even come close to keeping up with housing 
prices.
    A year of raises for some workers do not make up for nearly 
a half century of a Wall Street business model that funnels 
more and more wealth away from the workers who create it.
    We know that many of the affordable homes we do have are 
aging and need repairs. The housing shortage and high costs 
have been years in the making, and the pandemic only makes 
those things worse.
    Rents rose more than 11 percent, on average, between 2021 
and 2022. Home prices rose more than 18 percent over the same 
period. In some areas, price increases, as we know, have been 
much sharper.
    Wall Street firms and other outside investors swoop into 
our communities. They snap up homes, they rent them out at 
exorbitant rates, and they further reduce the supply of 
affordable housing available to working families.
    In his book Evicted, Matthew Desmond wrote that when 
families go to pay their bills, ``the rent eats first.'' And 
for most families, after the rent or the mortgage, utility 
bills eat second, and those bills have been eating into 
families' budgets for years, too.
    We hear a lot of talk in this Committee about inflation. 
Housing prices and energy bills take up a bigger and bigger 
chunk of families' budgets all the time. Think about the stress 
workers feel every month when that electric bill comes in the 
heat of summer, or the gas bill arrives in the dead of winter. 
Nearly a third of families said they had difficulty paying 
their energy bills in 2020, or had kept their home at an unsafe 
temperature because of the prospect of the size of those bills.
    This burden especially, obviously, is highest for the 
lowest-income families and more likely for people of color. We 
can bring down housing prices, and save people money on those 
bills every single month if done right.
    Virtually any new or renovated housing will have better 
environmental performance than older homes, and thanks to 
American innovation, we have building materials, technologies, 
and appliances that are dramatically more energy efficient than 
products from only a few years ago. We just need to actually 
get those into people's homes.
    Today we will hear from our witnesses how we can help all 
of our efforts work together. We can build more housing, 
protect it from fires and floods, and we can renovate and 
upgrade the homes we already have. That means lower emissions. 
It means jobs for building trades workers, often good-paying 
union jobs in communities all over the country--installing new 
insulation, replacing windows, bringing in new appliances, 
removing lead paint, first and foremost, building new houses 
and apartments. It means safer, healthier housing for our 
children. And it means lower energy bills.
    Senator Toomey.

         OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PATRICK J. TOOMEY

    Senator Toomey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to join 
the Chairman in wishing Senator Van Hollen a full speedy 
recovery. He is a good friend and colleague, and I know all of 
us look forward to welcoming him back to the Senate and to this 
Committee.
    Americans generally are needlessly facing record-high 
housing costs. Home prices have steadily appreciated since the 
financial crisis, but they have absolutely surged since the 
pandemic. No doubt, existing homeowners enjoy the appreciation 
in the value of their homes, but first-time buyers and renters 
are just being priced out of markets.
    The Biden administration has correctly identified that 
there is a problem here. But unfortunately its proposed 
solutions are not going to work. Just this week, the 
Administration unveiled its housing affordability plan. Even 
though they purport to tackle inflation, the Administration is 
really just doubling down on failed housing policies. They 
support the House-passed reconciliation bill, which 
contemplates spending $75 billion on housing vouchers and $80 
billion for public housing, on top of all the tens of billions 
of dollars that we already annually spend on these programs. 
This will just increase demand without a commensurate increase 
in supply and will further drive up housing prices.
    They also are now considering pushing Fannie and Freddie 
into riskier activities that prior administrations understood 
to be too risky for taxpayers to have to pay for. They want 
taxpayers to buy loans on mobile home sales and help finance 
wealthy developers building apartment buildings during and even 
before construction begins.
    At least they have not yet fallen into the trap of cutting 
mortgage insurance premiums, which would only further spur 
demand and increase taxpayer exposure to risk.
    Now if the one of the things it would do would be to remove 
the misguided trade barriers that drive up the cost of building 
new homes. They could lift tariffs on lumber, steel, and 
aluminum, for instance, materials that are universally used in 
buildings, including homes, across the country.
    In the last 3 years alone, American consumers paid over 
$13.2 billion more on steel and aluminum imports, and we know 
lumber tariffs contributed to price increases as well.
    Turning to today's topic, energy-efficiency and resilient 
housing, I expect we will hear calls for more Government 
intervention to make homes more energy efficient. As the 
argument goes, families need to make their homes more energy 
efficient in response to impending climate change, and 
``greening'' homes would have the added benefit of reducing 
energy costs. The Federal Government can push these efforts 
through energy efficiency mandates and subsidies.
    This is the wrong approach. Efficiency mandates are not 
free. Consider California's mandate that many newly constructed 
homes and buildings have to have solar panels. The New York 
Times notes that adding solar panels and a battery to a new 
home can raise its cost by ``$20,000 or more.'' In today's 
interest rate environment, that will cost a well-qualified 
buyer about $1,200 more per year. For a buyer with a more 
checkered credit history, it will hit even harder.
    The Government should not increase costs and restrict 
consumer choice by prescribing paternalistic regulations or 
subsidizing specific products. Manufacturers already have 
market incentives to develop energy-efficient products.
    When higher efficiency appliances and construction 
materials deliver savings that actually pay for themselves, 
consumers buy them. But regulations that prioritize energy-
efficiency over other consumer preferences only serve to limit 
consumer choice by preventing consumers from purchasing 
products based on those other preferences.
    Green subsidies are equally problematic. They really are a 
kind of corporate welfare that props up uncompetitive segments 
of the market. They also mask the cost of the Administration's 
other energy policies, like its restrictions on pipeline 
construction, that are foolishly driving up the cost of natural 
gas and other fuels in many parts of our country.
    We should not be considering components of the Green New 
Deal at a time when inflation is outpacing wages. And let us 
face the facts--workers in the Biden economy are falling 
further and further behind. Families are struggling to fill up 
their gas tanks and pay all the ordinary expenses they have to 
incur. Now is not the time to talk about mandating EV chargers 
or tankless water heaters.
    If Government really wants to reduce energy costs for 
homeowners and renters, it should not forbid new homes from 
having natural gas hookups or mandate more energy-efficient 
appliances and devices with much higher upfront costs. The 
Administration should instead tap American energy resources and 
increase supply, not tell people to spend tens of thousands 
more on home improvements they do not need or want.
    Today we will hear from Katie Tubb, a researcher on energy 
policy, who has concerns with Federal mandates and subsidies 
for energy efficiency. As she notes, this Administration has 
placed political preferences in front of American needs and 
developed a regulatory regime that chokes our energy supply. 
She also explains that onerous regulations have negative 
consequences. They reduce consumer choices and 
disproportionately burden lower-income households.
    Ms. Tubb's testimony provides important evidence as we 
consider whether energy-efficiency spending should be further 
subsidized with taxpayer dollars.
    Now is not the time to sanction more spending with unproven 
value as the Government should be focused on tackling 
inflation. If we are serious about helping working families, we 
need to take immediate action. The Administration should 
immediately eliminate tariffs on construction materials like 
lumber and steel that artificially inflate home costs. 
President Biden should also restore American energy 
independence and substantially increase our energy supply.
    And we should recognize that the energy efficiency market 
is healthy. Let us not limit consumer choice and contribute to 
rising housing costs by unnecessarily intervening.
    Thank you.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Toomey.
    I will introduce the three witnesses. Ms. Ruth Ann Norton, 
President and CEO of Green & Healthy Homes Initiative. Welcome. 
Ms. Norton has been an advocate for healthy housing and racial 
and health equity in local, State, and Federal policy for more 
than 30 years. She directs the nationwide work of the 
Baltimore-based Green & Healthy Homes Initiative. She was 
instrumental in Maryland's 99 percent reduction in childhood 
lead poisoning, rivaling only the success of the programs in 
Cleveland, I might add.
    I mean, think about that. My State has 600,000 contaminated 
lead pipes leading from main water lines into people's homes. 
The bipartisan infrastructure bill will replace those over the 
next few years, what that means in Maryland and Ohio and 
elsewhere.
    She is also an advisor to Energy Efficiency for All and 
advocates for the health and social benefits of weatherization 
investment. Welcome.
    Ms. Katie Tubb, Research Fellow, Center for Energy, 
Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foundation. Welcome, 
Ms. Tubb. She researches and writes policy paper on energy and 
environmental topics for The Heritage Foundation. She has been 
a contributor to the Daily Signal, the Washington Times, 
National Review, National Journal, RealClearEnergy, and the 
Nuclear Townhall. Thank you again. Welcome.
    Ms. Krista Egger, Vice President of Building Resilient 
Futures, Enterprise Community Partners. Ms. Egger manages 
Enterprise's national sustainability efforts including the 
Enterprise Green Communities Criteria, the Nation's only green 
building program dedicated to affordable housing construction. 
She has more than 15 years' experience leading energy 
efficiency and healthy housing initiatives with affordable 
housing stakeholders. She works to deploy equitable climate 
resilience solutions across the country. Welcome, Ms. Egger.
    Thank you all for appearing today. Ms. Norton, please begin 
your testimony. Thank you.

   STATEMENT OF RUTH ANN NORTON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, GREEN & 
                    HEALTHY HOMES INITIATIVE

    Ms. Norton. Thank you, Chairman Brown, Ranking Member 
Toomey, and distinguished Members of the Committee, for this 
opportunity to appear before you today, and thank you for the 
kind words for my Senator, Chris Van Hollen.
    I am Ruth Ann Norton, the President and CEO of the Green & 
Healthy Homes Initiative, a national nonprofit in Baltimore and 
dedicated to advancing health, economic, and racial equity 
through the creation of healthy, safe, and energy-efficient 
homes.
    We know, from decades of this work, that historical 
disinvestment in urban and rural and Black and Brown low-income 
communities throughout this Nation has disproportionately 
affected housing conditions across the country, endangering 
health, safety, and financial security of children, families, 
and seniors. In fact, over 30 million American families wake up 
every day in unhealthy and poorly weatherized homes that are 
increasingly susceptible to climate-related events that 
negatively affect their physical, emotional, and economic well-
being. Their homes with malfunctioning gas stoves, peeling 
paint, and mold are making them sick and directly contributing 
to their inability to lift out of poverty.
    Yet by optimizing climate energy efficiency and resiliency 
of investments through flexible home repair we can solve these 
complex health and housing issues that exist for these 30 
million Americans.
    GHHI has worked to transform how we address the twin 
tragedies of deteriorated housing stock and unhealthy families 
for decades. Through its direct services, research work, and 
policy, we have demonstrated the enormous health, economic, and 
social benefits of a housing upgrade model that aligns these 
measures--health and safety measures--with energy resilience 
and climate-related investments.
    What has this flexible approach shown us? Contractors 
cross-trained to do this work in health, safety, and energy 
efficiency will start at $4,000 to $8,000 more than their 
peers. We have seen significant reductions in lead poisoning. 
The Senator cited Baltimore's reduction of 99 percent, and 
across the country, in places like Cleveland, Detroit, and 
beyond.
    Reductions in hospitalization and emergency room visits 
have been reduced by 66 to 70 percent, causing important 
savings in our Medicaid programs, and we have seen large 
reductions in carbon emissions, energy costs, and trip-and-fall 
injuries for our seniors.
    It has also meant that we have seen improvements in school 
attendance in our studies by 62 percent and work attendance by 
88 percent, because parents are not taking their children to 
the emergency room for asthma but they are able to get to the 
classroom, healthy, ready to learn and compete for a lifetime.
    In this work we have also seen housing stability increase 
by 80 percent and Medicaid savings, as I noted, in the 
millions, with managed care experiencing 26 to 32 percent 
savings per month for these measures. These results achieved by 
our work and supported by agencies like DOE, HUD, the JPB 
Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and many others 
prove that flexible home repair dollars that close the gap that 
often exists in the alignment of Federal programs work and 
significantly increase housing stability, school attendance, 
work attendance, and the like.
    At the Federal level, it means that we will better unlock, 
scale, and optimally apply the congressionally appropriated 
funding in climate energy efficiency and resiliency.
    I am here today to ask this Committee to reinstitute its 
support for $33 billion in flexible home repair dollars to 
ensure that we lift the standard of housing and health and 
opportunity, that we address issues like lead-based paint while 
we address the issues of climate and energy. That would come in 
the form of $5 billion for a flexible fund for lead and healthy 
home repair, $25 billion of home funds, and $3 billion of CDBG 
funds, to ensure that when we work in the home that we are able 
to do a complete and full job for the future.
    These programs will serve as a long-overdue catalyst for 
improving health and economic outcomes for families across the 
country while simultaneously increasing private sector 
investment, reducing health care costs, decreasing the energy 
consumption. They will also reduce the barriers to 
weatherization enrollment and client deferral rates and ensure 
that we spend our time not only wasted risk assessments and 
inspections that get deferred but we are able to get the job 
done. We also will be able to improve housing resiliency that 
allows for greater stability and to support the Justice 40 
objectives by helping low-income residents equitably gain 
access to energy efficiency and work that is community-based 
and has market rate job support.
    We know that the implementation of this fund will create 
reliable demand for home repair and modification services, 
creating more job in communities with high rates of 
unemployment, underemployment, particularly among our youth.
    Our key findings in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and 
the like have seen an alignment of health care investment also 
come through the ProMedica $100 million flexible fund to 
support 7,000 units across the country. In Detroit we recently 
saw the Gilbert family align with ProMedica, the Detroit Energy 
organization, and the city of Detroit to support this solution 
because they saw that the barrier to fully addressing energy 
efficiency and resiliency to low-income communities met the 
urgent need for addressing health and safety.
    In New Jersey they are looking at a Whole House Pilot 
Program with Governor Murphy and the Board of Public Utilities, 
and the Climate Imperative and the Energy Foundation are 
working to ensure the alignment of electrification and 
decarbonization with health and safety.
    We know that these are effective ways to spend our dollars 
and to ensure that, as Michael McAfee says in his foreword to 
the book, Gray to Green Communities, by Dana Bourland, that we 
are able to advance ``solutions that prioritize millions of 
people hurt first and worst by poor housing conditions and 
climate-related disasters.'' GHHI believe the smartest path 
forward to address the legacy of these issues is the creation 
of a flexible healthy home repair fund that ensures healthier 
and more equitable opportunities for all.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Ms. Norton.
    Ms. Tubb, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Thank you for 
joining us.

 STATEMENT OF KATIE TUBB, RESEARCH FELLOW, CENTER FOR ENERGY, 
       CLIMATE, AND ENVIRONMENT, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION

    Ms. Tubb. Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to 
speak before you today.
    Certainly weatherization and energy efficiency investments 
pay off. Efficiency is a desirable attribute, and Americans 
choose energy efficiency products that meet their unique 
circumstances and diverse needs.
    However, problems arise when Federal subsidies and Federal 
mandates enter the equation. As I detail in my testimony, there 
are a number of problems with federally funded weatherization 
and energy efficiency programs.
    First, Federal weatherization programs have a history of 
waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer resources. The DOE 
inspector general published a report this April detailing fraud 
in the Weatherization Assistance Program at all levels--
substandard work, billing errors, erroneous or missing 
verification of applicant eligibility, insufficient training 
and oversight, and slow or nonexistent consequences for bad 
actors.
    Second, Federal weatherization subsidies and efficiency 
mandates have delivered underwhelming results and do not 
account for the diverse preferences of the American people. 
Unfortunately, too many of these programs do not look back at 
real-world use and consumer experiences. While this can be 
humorous at times, such as the Department of Energy's 
assumption that Americans use their washing machines 392 times 
per year, which is more than once per day, to justify their 
costly efficiency standards, it can also lead to phenomenal 
waste of resources.
    Third, climate change and CO2 emissions mitigation are not 
stated goals, considerations, or metrics in statute which the 
DOE is to consider in implementing either the Weatherization 
Assistance Program or its Energy Efficiency Standards Program. 
Even so, and regardless of one's opinion on the nature and pace 
of global warming, house weatherization and efficiency 
regulations are costly and ineffective ways to reduce 
emissions. For example, the University of Chicago estimates a 
cost of reducing CO2 emissions through the Weatherization 
Assistance Program of $329 per ton. The Biden administration's 
interim social cost of carbon is $51 per ton.
    I bring these up because of two main reasons. First, the 
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes an additional 
$3.5 billion over the next 5 years for the Weatherization 
Assistance Program. The last time Congress authorized such a 
flood of taxpayer spending was under the American Recovery and 
Reinvestment Act, the context for the inspector general report 
I mentioned earlier.
    Second, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable 
Energy is initiating scores of energy efficiency standards for 
common household appliances as well as commercial appliances, 
from furnaces to water heaters, air conditioners, light bulbs, 
ceiling fans, washing machines and dryers, and I think of 
particular interest to this Committee, manufactured housing. 
For both of these reasons I think congressional oversight is 
essential.
    In addition to oversight, Congress must address core issues 
that are hurting American households, namely policies that are 
driving up energy prices, housing prices, and inflation.
    My particular interest is with energy, which is a 
nonnegotiable in all American households. Energy is not a 
luxury item, and we cannot take a pass on it for later. So the 
more Americans must devote to paying for energy, the fewer 
resources they have to address other pressures, from climate or 
elsewhere. And when energy prices increase and are beyond the 
reach of those who can least afford it, the consequences can be 
dire.
    Congress, and particularly the Administration, must devote 
more attention to policies that are unnecessarily driving up 
prices, injecting risk, and inhibiting America's ability to be 
resilient, whatever the future holds.
    With that I will close and I look forward to your 
questions. Thank you.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Ms. Tubb.
    Ms. Egger, thank you for joining us. You are recognized for 
5 minutes.

 STATEMENT OF KRISTA EGGER, VICE PRESIDENT, BUILDING RESILIENT 
             FUTURES, ENTERPRISE COMMUNITY PARTNERS

    Ms. Egger. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Brown, Ranking 
Member Toomey, and Members of the Committee. Thank you for the 
opportunity to provide testimony on the urgency and 
opportunities to address climate change and housing 
affordability.
    I am a Vice President at the nonprofit housing organization 
Enterprise Community Partners, where I lead our national 
sustainability efforts, including the Enterprise Green 
Communities, the Nation's only national green building program 
designed explicitly for affordable housing.
    Over our 40-year history, Enterprise has collaborated with 
local housing providers to build and preserve 873,000 
affordable homes, invest $54 billion across all 50 States, and 
improve millions of lives.
    As part of our Building Resilient Futures Initiative, that 
I lead, we have set a vision that sustainable, resilient, 
affordable housing should be the norm and within every family's 
reach. It is that experience on which I base my testimony 
today, in addition to my oversight of Enterprise Green 
Communities and our Regional Resilience Academies which teach 
property owners and developers how to reduce properties' carbon 
emissions and prepare for hazards like extreme heat, flooding, 
wildfires, and excessive wind speed from tornadoes and 
hurricanes.
    Just this weekend I moved into a new home, one that, I am 
fortunate to say, has the benefit of being all electric. This 
is better for my health and for the environment than my old 
home, which relied on gas for water heating and cooking. I say 
I am fortunate because I know that most Americans have not yet 
been able to make the switch and may not even be aware of how 
important it is, let alone be able to afford it. But scientists 
have demonstrated the importance of limiting emissions, 
including from the burning of fossil fuels for gas utilities 
and appliances.
    Increasing greenhouse gas emissions have escalated the 
frequency and intensity of natural disasters, with 
multibillion-dollar consequence. One in 3 Americans have faced 
an extreme weather event in the past 2 years, and because 
residential energy use accounts for 17 percent of greenhouse 
gas emissions in the United States, to meet the 
Administration's goal of cutting emissions in half the next 8 
years the U.S. will have to dramatically slash investments from 
housing. And prioritizing decarbonization in the affordable 
housing sector, and particularly in communities of color is 
critical, given the historic patterns of housing disinvestment 
in neighborhoods nationwide.
    Without an explicit focus on a just transition away from 
fossil fuels in the housing sector, health and wealth 
disparities will be exacerbated. By electrifying homes we can 
also address sources of pollution that directly impact 
respiratory health. Children growing up in homes with gas 
stoves have a 37 percent greater chance of developing asthma. 
Just a 30-minute stovetop meal with gas cooking results in 
higher contaminant levels inside than are legal outside.
    It will take bold action to quickly address the built 
environment's impact on the planet so that everyone and every 
community can thrive. I commend this Committee for its 
bipartisan commitment to examining how we can help protect the 
safety of all Americans and be better prepared for climate 
change.
    At Enterprise, we recommend Congress ensure that Federal 
funding supports the stability and prosperity of communities 
through investments in climate-ready, affordable homes. We have 
demonstrated for more than 15 years that green, affordable 
housing is not only a viable concept but successful at scale.
    Through Enterprise's Green Communities program nearly 
120,000 affordable homes have been built sustainably, and will 
operate sustainably. Each year, certified developments are 
saving $31.8 million in energy and water costs, benefits 
realized by both owners and residents, and Green Communities-
certified buildings reduce carbon emissions by the equivalent 
of taking more than 19,000 cars off the road annually. We have 
seen this achievement in nearly every State in the country.
    Second, we recommend Congress incentivize an equitable 
transition away from fossil fuels. The Federal Government must 
provide an overhaul of existing incentives as well as provide 
new, transformative investments for equitable electrification 
and deep energy retrofits. We need to help people get heat 
pumps and electric stoves.
    Third, Congress should set resilient building standards as 
the minimum quality standard for all new construction and 
substantial rehabilitation projects built with Federal agency 
dollars.
    Our changing climate creates enormous challenges. How we 
design, build, and operate buildings will affect the pace of 
climate change. Healthy living environments with affordable 
utility expenses are possible and they are critical to the 
future of resilient communities.
    On behalf of Enterprise Community Partners I would like to 
offer my gratitude to Chairman Brown, Ranking Member Toomey, 
and all the Members of the Committee for your bipartisan 
leadership on these issues and your recognition that we need 
bold action to move our country forward in a more climate-ready 
and equitable direction.
    So I look forward to hearing from others on the table and 
to answering your questions today. Thank you.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Ms. Egger. I will begin the 
questions, starting with Ms. Norton.
    Lead paint still has devastating impacts on children, 
especially in the city I live in, in Cleveland. Health care 
nonprofit education partners have come together to form, as you 
know, the Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition. Thank you for working 
with coalition partners on this issue.
    Ms. Norton, just a couple of quick questions. How does 
their work help protect Cleveland's children from lead and make 
housing more efficient and affordable for their families, and 
what type of resources would help them do this work?
    Ms. Norton. Well, I want to first really commend the Lead 
Safe Cleveland Coalition. It is one of the best formulations of 
civic action on lead that has existed in this country, raising 
over $100 million, led by Dan Cohn at Mount Sinai, to really 
push the alignment for the Cleveland Housing Network, 
Environmental Health Watch, and Cleveland Clinic and others to 
come together to address what is the most damaging and damning 
environmental impact on our children in the country.
    Lead paint, Senator, just for the 1.1 million lowest-income 
families who have lead paint hazards that we know of through 
the American Housing Survey, that 1.1 million families, just to 
solve that problem is $170 billion. And part of that is that we 
have to be able to address lead paint and the holistic housing 
that undergirds the housing structure.
    In Cleveland, the work they have done to really formulate 
the Lead Safe Cleveland fund can be really benefited by the 
investments that are being made by Cleveland Clinic and 
ProMedica on flexible dollars that will allow them to ensure 
that if it is a weatherization program that is going in, we are 
going to also link lead poisoning prevention and to be able to 
ensure that no wrong door can a family come in, that if they 
have lead pain in their home they are going to be able to 
address it.
    Big issues that we need to support in Cleveland and around 
the country is in workforce and worker capacity-building. If we 
do that, by linking health and safety and lead and energy 
together, we will be able to have stronger housing and a 
stronger market to build community-based jobs.
    So I think that we have a bright future in what we see in 
places like Cleveland but we need to have the wraparound 
dollars around health and safety to make that fund, aligned 
with energy efficiency dollars and climate dollars to really 
ensure that we will not go back and that families will be 
lifted out of poverty and opportunity.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you for that.
    I will switch to Ms. Egger for a moment. Your written 
testimony describes how climate change exacerbates the housing 
shortage. It states that for low- and middle-income homes 
certified under your Enterprise Green Communities criteria 
there is an annual savings of $31 million. What does savings 
like this mean for a low-income family living in one of these 
homes?
    Ms. Egger. Thank you for the question, Senator. It is a 
critical issue. When we speak about green building we are 
talking about home that are healthy, efficient, and 
environmental responsible. And through our Green Communities 
program, which you mentioned, we are delivering those to the 
folks who need it most, who are not able to withstand a 
radically high energy bill and still pay for their prescription 
medications and other essential needs at home.
    So we have shown through our Green Communities work, which 
has certified homes in nearly every State in the country, that 
implementing these green, efficient, healthy practices is 
feasible within the cost constraints of the affordable housing 
market, and that the incremental cost of building green is 
minimal compared to standard code, with a simple payback of 
just about 5-1/2 years, every year after that being a net gain 
for the vulnerable families that live in these homes.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you.
    In the last few seconds back to you, Ms. Norton. What 
happens when a homeowner wants to use weatherization assistance 
to lower energy bills, but they also have lead paint or they 
also have a shoddy roof?
    Ms. Norton. If we do not link these together and align 
them, the Weatherization Program can often be deferred until we 
have to address the underlying lead paint issues. But by 
aligning this with a flexible fund we are able to do those 
issues together. Doing that in an aligned manner, Senator 
Brown, saves Government 20 percent. So for every four houses 
that they would do in individual programs, by having the 
ability to align and link through flexible funding you are able 
to achieve five houses.
    And the outcomes for families are enormous. As you know, 
every dollar we invest in lead poisoning prevention can yield 
up to $221 in return. But what it does mean is that kids into 
the classroom healthy, ready to learn, and compete and earn for 
a lifetime. It also increases housing stability. But if we are 
not aligning these programs together and we are delivering them 
in a fractured system then we have often long delays. And all 
of this work around lead paint is critical to allow us to be 
able to do the energy work and the climate work and the 
resilience work that is necessary, because it has to be taken 
care of in order to enact those other funds.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you. And we know that U.S. Congress 
has provided funds for weatherization, and it is critical that, 
as you point out, that we provide home repair dollars so those 
weatherization funds are as effective as they can be.
    Ms. Norton. Yeah, and I think Krista raised this as well, 
but there is a 20-degree difference in housing temperature in 
the lowest-income communities, in places like Cleveland, 
Baltimore, Philadelphia, and other places, where that has an 
impact not only on the temperature but on actual cardiac 
health, on respiratory health. So have to link these together 
are so incredibly important.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you. Senator Toomey.
    Senator Toomey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the things 
I am concerned about is adding still more energy-related 
regulatory mandates, and then that raises costs, so then we 
increase subsidies, and we have this ongoing interference in 
the market.
    So let me ask a question for Ms. Tubb, just to start with. 
Is there a marketplace for construction techniques and products 
and appliances that are more energy efficient? In other words, 
is that a selling point? Do consumers become aware that some 
things are more energy efficient than others? In the absence of 
Government mandates and subsidies, would not energy efficiency 
still be a relevant market selling point?
    Ms. Tubb. Absolutely, and I think consumers express that in 
the choices they make when they are purchasing materials, 
equipment, appliances. There may be an education issue there, 
and that is also a place for the market to fill that need. But 
I think Americans do preference efficiency when it makes sense 
for them.
    Senator Toomey. And the energy efficiency sometimes is a 
choice that involves tradeoffs, right? I mean, I do not know, 
if you are in the market for a dishwasher, a dishwasher that is 
more energy efficient will save you money. That is attractive. 
But you might also want one that is quiet. You might want one 
that does its cycle quickly. Should the Government decide which 
of those features is a priority or should the consumer decide?
    Ms. Tubb. I think the consumer, and it gets exactly to 
those tradeoffs. Efficiency is one aspect that Americans value 
but for a variety of reasons, whether size of family, 
durability, preferences, quietness, there are other things that 
come into the decisionmaking process, and a bureaucrat, no 
matter how well-intended, just cannot understand the complexity 
of that decisionmaking process.
    Senator Toomey. And it is not uniform. It is going to 
completely vary by consumers.
    I want to go to a point that you made, and I think it is a 
really important one, about the elasticity of energy. I 
sometimes think you can infer from some of the things that I 
hear that if we just produced less oil and gas then people 
would consume less. How much variability do people have in 
their consumption of energy, as a general matter?
    Ms. Tubb. I think it is particularly inelastic when it 
comes to housing. As I mentioned earlier, we see the 
consequence of that, particularly in winter, and they are 
devastating. When people cannot afford energy, lives are at 
stake, and that is how inelastic this is.
    And I think that is why talking about reducing fossil fuel 
use is particularly problematic because you are talking about 
people's well-being. And just to put that in a little bit of 
context, 80 percent of Americans' heat, power, and 
transportation comes from coal, oil, and natural gas. These are 
not inconsequential energy resources.
    Senator Toomey. Right, and sure, a family can decide, well, 
we just cannot afford to go on vacation, and so they will save 
some money and burn a little bit less gas because they will not 
drive to the place they were going to go. But the vast majority 
of energy consumption, as you point out, they really do not 
have any choice. They have to have the lights on. They have to 
have appliances running. They have to go to and from work. And 
when we have policies that drive up that cost, the standard of 
living, inevitably, just declines, it seems to me.
    I want to just shift a little bit to resiliency outside of 
the energy issue. I think there is a role for Government, 
especially State and local government, in developing building 
codes that ensure that homes are built to a standard that makes 
them more resilient, especially in the face of natural 
disasters. By the way, it is worth point out--it is an 
objective fact--that the cost of the damage caused by extreme 
weather events has been declining as a percentage of America's 
economy. That has been a trend for some time now. But it still 
happens and it is devastating when it does.
    We have a Flood Insurance Program that insures homes 
against flood damage. It would be one thing if the Flood 
Insurance Program charged rates that were commensurate with the 
risk of a property but we know it does not do that. It 
undercharges, and we know that for a variety of reasons, not 
the least of which is Congress has to bail out the program 
periodically, to the tune of $30 billion over the last two 
decades. And yet amazingly, the NFIP will cover the cost of 
repair or replacement even if your home has been flooded 
multiple times.
    Does a flood insurance policy like this actually encourage 
mitigation and resilience or is there a moral hazard component 
to it?
    Ms. Tubb. Well, I am not an expert in the program but, you 
know, GAO has noticed problems with the program, with their 
high-risk list. I would recommend research by my colleague, 
Diane Katz. But certainly a climate-ready home is not one that 
we are constantly bailing out by these programs that distort 
risk, you know, that encourage risky development in 
floodplains, and I think discourage adaptation. It makes no 
sense to have a climate-ready home that is constantly in the 
way of danger, and unfortunately, programs like this just 
incentivize repeated decisionmaking like that.
    Senator Toomey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Toomey.
    Senator Reed, from Rhode Island, is recognized.
    Senator Reed. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 
you, panel, for your testimony.
    I have long been involved in energy efficiency 
improvements, working closely particularly with my colleague, 
Senator Collins from Maine, and we have introduced legislation, 
S. 2361, which is the Green Retrofits Act. What we would like 
to do is make energy-efficient upgrades to HUD-assisted, 
multifamily homes, which pay billions in utilities each year.
    Ms. Egger, I know you have done a lot of work at the 
intersection of green and affordable housing. Do you agree that 
there is a real need for green retrofits in affordable, 
multifamily homes?
    Ms. Egger. Thank you for the question, Senator. Yes, 
unequivocally yes, there is a need for green, affordable 
retrofits, particularly for HUD-assisted properties which have 
the greatest deferred maintenance needs and the greatest needs 
for upgrades.
    We have seen that building retrofits can improve 
efficiency, which reduces the amount of utility bills which 
residents face every day. They also can improve the health 
characteristics of those homes and reduce that our climate is 
changing so that fewer disasters will actually impact those 
homes in the future.
    Senator Reed. And once these efficiency improvements are 
made there are long-term savings to the tenant if they are 
paying the fuel bills, and those long-term savings have to be 
included in the cost-benefit analysis. Is that correct?
    Ms. Egger. Absolutely, yes, sir. We completely agree that 
the lifecycle costs must be considered. If we are just looking 
at the upfront cost of improvements, where we are missing the 
bulk of the benefit, that must be----
    Senator Reed. In terms of incentives, I mean, I think in my 
community most of the low-income homes are rental homes and the 
actual inhabitants, the tenants, do not make decisions about 
what type of utilities they buy or what type of equipment they 
put in, stoves, et cetera. And there is an incentive, in many 
cases, for a landlord just to put the cheapest thing he or she 
can find and let the tenant pay the utility bill. Do you find 
that to be common?
    Ms. Egger. We do. It is more difficult to address the 
rental housing sector in some ways than the home ownership 
sector, and proposals and funding opportunities that promote 
green and efficient retrofits are particularly beneficial if 
they allow housing owners to retrofit all properties within 
their portfolio at once rather than a one-by-one basis, so that 
maximum benefit can be achieved.
    Senator Reed. Thank you. I am also very much concerned 
about weatherization, and again, I have been working over the 
years to help. We have legislation now, S. 3769, Weatherization 
Assistance Program Improvements Act, which would provide $325 
million to repair structural issues, prepare homes for 
weatherization upgrades, increase the number of homes to be 
able to serve.
    And as you have indicated, Ms. Norton, there are many, many 
benefits to weatherization including public health and safety 
as well as reduction of cost. Can you speak to these benefits 
again?
    Ms. Norton. Yeah. I mean, this is one of the most important 
things, and the reason that our organization moved from being 
the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning to the Green & 
Healthy Homes Initiatives is that we were investing millions of 
dollars making homes lead-safe and healthy, but without the 
alignment with weatherization families were having costs driven 
up and housing stability was much lower and transient.
    By doing the Weatherization Assistance Program we have a 
dramatic impact also on asthma, on emergency room visits, on 
hospitalizations that result in millions of dollars in savings, 
in Rhode Island alone, where we ran a flexible funding program 
for the Attorney General's Office, to link Rhode Island housing 
and the work in weatherization.
    But weatherization does more than just improve respiratory 
health for asthma and COPD. It improves housing stability, it 
improves cardiac health, and it also allows for community-based 
jobs that, as I testified earlier, we know has an uptick of 
about $4,000 to $8,000 more when we cross-train, as we have 
done through the Rhode Island Builders Association, RIBA, and 
others.
    So we see significant housing stability that improves by 84 
percent when we enact climate investments and weatherization 
investments, and the significant piece is also 
intergenerational wealth transfer. Not only are families able 
to get to work and kids get to the classroom but they are 
lowering their energy bills and building the market value of 
their homes. And one of the inequities that we see greatly in 
the United States, especially in Black and Brown communities, 
is that ability of intergenerational real estate wealth 
transfer, and it has a dramatic impact on that stabilizing 
factor and on equity.
    Senator Reed. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Reed.
    Senator Ossoff is recognized, from Georgia, from his 
office.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for 
convening this hearing and thank you to our panelists.
    Ms. Norton, my first question is for you. I have introduced 
the Clean Energy for All Homes Act, which allows low- and 
middle-income households to receive a full tax refund for the 
installation of energy-efficient appliances and renewable 
energy production technologies on their homes, like solar 
modules. I have also cosponsored the Zero Emissions Home Act 
and the Hope for Homes Act to provide rebates to homeowners who 
invest in energy efficiency.
    Can you comment please, ma'am, on what are some of the main 
barriers to more widespread adoption of technologies and 
products by low- and middle-income households and small 
businesses that improve energy efficiency and add resiliency, 
empowering those folks to generate their own energy and 
potentially benefit from net metering on the grid?
    Ms. Norton. Well, thank you, Senator, for your work and for 
the Clean Energy for All Homes Act.
    Even when investments pay off quickly many families cannot 
afford the initial investment so a tax credit can be an 
important way for families that make that initial investment, 
and it will accelerate the payback period for a positive 
return. By lowering the energy bills in a home and being able 
to get families across that threshold to the affordability to 
make that change, it is so important.
    By being able to implement clean energy we are able to do 
other things that include eliminating leaky, obsolescent gas 
stoves. That, as testified earlier, can increase asthma 37 to 
42 percent, and also has poisoning impacts on families.
    And being able to move low-income families from gas to 
electric and to clean energy, long-term is not only lowering 
the cost, it is dramatically improving their health, and it is 
an opportunity to improve the structure of the home, and as I 
testified to Senator Reed's question on the ability to increase 
that housing stability, which is so critically important for 
how our children develop, how our older adults are able to age. 
And being able to have stronger climate and energy investments 
allow greater housing stability.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Norton. Continuing our 
conversation let us talk about weatherization. The 
Weatherization Assistance Program helps low-income households 
increase energy efficiency in their home. Can you comment on 
how improved weatherization helps save folks on their energy 
bills, especially when energy prices are high and getting 
higher? And can you also comment on how your organization works 
to ensure that folks who need repairs to their homes, which may 
make them ineligible for assistance under this program, does 
that work, and what recommendations you have for Congress on 
this front?
    And if you can perhaps hold that to 1 minute, respectfully, 
I have got a final question for Ms. Egger.
    Ms. Norton. Of course. So let us be clear that low-income 
families living below the poverty level have an energy burden 
of 42 percent, which is outsized and disproportionate. So being 
able to enact weatherization assistance immediately has a 
dramatic impact on lowering those energy bills. And aligning 
flexible home repair and work to reduce things like lead paint 
allow us to actually do this more efficiently, more 
effectively, and ensure that the investments in weatherization 
are sustained over time and not degraded through mold, mildew, 
moisture, or other issues. And we are able to really move that 
energy savings into wealth-building for families, being able to 
enact better health and better wealth-building.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you so much, Ms. Norton.
    And my final question is for Ms. Egger. In coastal 
communities like Brunswick, Tybee Island, St. Simons Island, 
St. Marys, there is substantial, persistent flood risk to 
homes, critical infrastructure, small businesses. We are seeing 
storm surge events and tropical storms become more frequent and 
more severe. In Brunswick, every single home is at risk of 
flooding, and this is a community where 36 percent of the 
residents are living at or below the poverty line.
    I am focused every day on helping coastal Georgians to 
prepare themselves for flooding, to help those communities 
become more resilient. That is why I have been focused on storm 
surge protection for Tybee Island.
    Can you, based on your expertise, please, Ms. Egger, make 
recommendations to me, to this Committee, and to the Congress 
for how we can help coastal communities like those in coastal 
Georgia and across the country become even more resilient to 
flooding, storm surge, and tropical storms?
    Ms. Egger. Yes, sir. Thank you for the question. I actually 
grew up in Statesboro, Georgia, and have enjoyed many a dish of 
Brunswick stew, and understand the issues that you are 
describing. In short, we understand that the issues of flooding 
will only be increasing. We consider climate change a threat 
multiplier in exacerbating the vulnerabilities of folks who are 
living in poverty.
    And to answer your question quickly, we would recommend 
that Congress provide more funding to elevate homes, to ensure 
that they are less at risk of flooding, to provide funding for 
buyouts of folks who are living in homes who can no longer 
afford to live there or able to sell their homes because of the 
lack of flood insurance. And we would encourage Congress to 
authorize FEMA to slow the increase of flood insurance premiums 
for folks who have low and moderate incomes.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Ossoff.
    Senator Smith, from Minnesota, is recognized, in person.
    Senator Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Ranking Member Toomey, 
and thanks to all of our witnesses today.
    I would like to follow up on sort of the theme of questions 
that some of my colleagues have asked, and Ms. Egger, I am 
going to address this question to you.
    So as you have all pointed out, residential energy use 
alone accounts for 20 percent of all U.S. emissions, and so 
there is an important opportunity here, through innovation and 
investment, to address this challenge, and there is a big 
opportunity to reduce energy costs for consumers. And if you 
think about it, I think it is really telling that in 2020, 
nearly 27 percent of all U.S. households had a hard time paying 
their utility bills, and households of color, Black and Brown 
households, experienced nearly twice the rate of energy 
insecurity, struggling to pay their bills.
    But here is the problem. Electric and energy-efficient 
technologies have an up-front cost that means the lower-income 
households are sort of boxed out of making that investment. It 
is hard to sort of electrify everything when you cannot afford 
that up-front cost.
    So, Ms. Egger, could you just talk about this? What is the 
value of addressing that up-front cost of deploying energy-
efficient products, electrifying everything, so families are 
not boxed out of realizing that long-term benefit? Of course, 
it is a cost benefit but it also is a health benefit for them 
as well. And what should we be doing, specifically, to address 
that?
    Ms. Egger. Thank you, Senator, for the question. I would 
like to commend some of the actions that Minnesota Housing is 
actually taking today in order to encourage those investments 
and bring them to reality.
    We really see that affordable housing is not just about the 
price of rent or the price of your mortgage. It is also the 
price of your utility bill and the cost of transportation 
involved in living there. So investments in energy efficiency 
actually, although they do come with an up-front cost, do 
ensure long-term affordability, and those are the types of 
investments that we need more of so that we can make sure that 
vulnerable families do not fall further into poverty.
    Senator Smith. And so if we just let the market drive those 
decisions, and you have those high up-front costs that then box 
families out of being a part of it, I mean, does that not sort 
of further the inequities that we see in our community in terms 
of health equities and energy cost inequities?
    Ms. Egger. Yes, Senator. I could not agree more. The folks 
who need these investments most are the least able to pay for 
them themselves, and that is where Federal- or State-level 
assistance is really critical to ensure that those families can 
reap the benefits that you are describing.
    Senator Smith. So those kinds of early investments, whether 
it is a tax rebate or some sort of a strategy to overcome that 
up-front barrier, that up-front cost barrier, can advance a 
whole series of goals that we have, and in the long run the ROI 
on that is going to be good, right? I mean, that is point. This 
is improving the long-term ROI.
    Ms. Egger. I could not agree more. The cost of inaction is 
greater than the cost of action in this case.
    Senator Smith. I think Senator Reed hit on this a little 
bit as well, but, you know, if you think about the issue of 
people who are renting their homes, they do not own their own 
homes. Thirty-six percent of American households rent their own 
homes. These are disproportionately families of color, they are 
young people, they are low-income people.
    I thought this was really interesting. Almost 40 percent of 
renters are living in housing built before 1970. So these are, 
again, folks that are going to benefit the most from these 
sorts of energy retrofits, moving appliances to electric 
appliances.
    But here is the thing. A lot of those buildings are owned 
by smaller, maybe a family or somebody who owns one or two 
units--they are not a big business--without a lot of capital to 
invest in doing those energy retrofits. So could you just talk 
a little bit about what we can do to make it easier for those 
sole proprietor renter/owner to participate in this?
    Ms. Egger. Absolutely. There is no singular silver bullet. 
It will require a multipronged approach, both from support from 
manufacturers and distributors of energy-efficient and electric 
equipment to ensure that the costs are low enough that the 
small owners and renters that you described can afford to 
purchase these, and that, paired with capital, as well a 
technical assistance to ensure that Mom-and-Pop landlords who 
do not have the bandwidth to understand these solutions can 
connect with folks who can walk them through every step of the 
way.
    Senator Smith. Right. And a part of this is aligning the 
incentives so that they are all having us row in the same 
direction. I am mixing up my metaphors here but you know what I 
mean.
    Ms. Egger. Absolutely. We have seen great success. 
Actually, we are working an initiative in partnership with DHHI 
presently that is braiding together a philanthropic utility, 
private, and nonprofit support in order to make this type of 
work happen, and that kind of model is going to be essential.
    Senator Smith. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Smith.
    I have a couple of questions as Senator Menendez is on his 
way, and the Ranking Member can certainly do that too. I am 
sorry for the bit of a filibuster but important questions.
    Ms. Egger, if you would respond. Your testimony mentions 
that low-income families and communities are more vulnerable, 
of course, to climate-driven disasters. We have known that for 
generations. I remember, as a kid, I carried the Plain Dealer, 
the Cleveland newspaper, and I remember the front page one time 
where this whole community along the Ohio River was wiped out. 
And I do not think we talked about climate-driven disasters 
then but it was wiped out from Ohio River flooding, which 
happened every few years and now happens more often. So that is 
just one example of what we know.
    What are your recommendations, Ms. Egger, to help those 
households in those communities recover?
    Ms. Egger. It is a great question and I think there must be 
investment prior to a disaster occurring as well as investment 
to help with the recovery, which you are recommending here. 
Types of Federal actions that are feasible are requiring 
resilient building standards to ensure that homes are able to 
withstand floods and withstand other types of climate 
disasters. And then on the back end, after recovery, we need to 
ensure that assistance can get to vulnerable homes more quickly 
than it currently does so that folks can return to their homes 
and begin rebuilding quickly.
    Chairman Brown. And we certainly know that those people 
most likely to be hurt are the people with softer or weaker 
voices, if you will. I mean, people that are not able to get to 
the community, the mayor, the Governor, do not have quite the 
influence with them that people in other neighborhoods might 
have, I assume.
    Ms. Egger. I could not agree more, Senator. Yes, and that 
is why these types of assistance programs are necessary to put 
in place so that we can immediately provide that type of 
assistance and support.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you. So talk more for a moment about 
how these families can mitigate this damage before it happens. 
Talk a little bit more about preventive actions, other than 
addressing, way better than this country or this Government 
has, the issue of climate change. But talk about how we can 
prevent some of this.
    Ms. Egger. Absolutely. There are different strategies that 
are relevant, depending on the types of hazards that are 
relevant for a given community. So it really starts with 
understanding the risk, first understanding the different types 
of hazards that a community is vulnerable to, and then what 
types of risks those particular hazards pose to a community.
    So, for instance, if the hazard is flooding, perhaps the 
greatest risk is that homes will be flooded, or perhaps it is 
actually that a critical road to access economic job centers 
from the community will be washed out. So understanding the 
hazard, then the risk, and implementing solutions that respond 
are critical.
    With protective measures and thinking about flooding, in 
particular, can be elevating homes in the design stage, for 
instance, or in a retrofit fashion, above base flood elevation 
to ensure that we are planning for future levels of flooding. 
Other strategies which might be relevant for other types of 
disasters may include for wildfires, for instance, making sure 
that roofs are not built with combustible material, making sure 
that windows are not single-pane but double-pane, so that they 
slow the flow of heat more quickly, and ensuring that there is 
a buffer zone around homes without combustible material so that 
fire is less likely to spread as quickly.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you. Senator Toomey.
    Senator Toomey. Yeah. Turning to the issue of energy costs, 
I think it was Ms. Norton who made the point that people who 
live below the poverty line pay a huge percentage of their 
income for energy.
    Ms. Tubb, I know you have done a lot of work in this area. 
I represent Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania is the number two 
State in America in the production of natural gas, behind only 
Texas. And in Pennsylvania we have glut of natural gas, and we 
have all kinds of well-drilling capacity that is idle. That is 
despite the fact that natural gas prices have gone through the 
roof in Europe, and they are pretty expensive in a lot of parts 
of America, and it has occurred in recent years that Russian 
LNG tankers have sailed into Boston Harbor to provide natural 
gas to New England.
    All of this is because we do not allow additional pipelines 
to be built to connect the production of natural gas in 
Pennsylvania to the demand for it in, say, southern New 
England. Have you looked at all into the extent to which the 
refusal to build energy infrastructure--privately financed, and 
private sources are perfectly happy to do this--have you look 
at the extent to which the lack of the ability for developers 
to build that infrastructure is affecting cost of energy for 
consumers?
    Ms. Tubb. You know, I cannot give you a number off the top 
of my head but the Energy Information Administration has looked 
particularly at the Northeast and their energy reliability and 
affordability problems because of that exact issue, that the 
Northeast has prevented either expansion or additions to their 
pipeline infrastructure such that they pay much higher energy 
prices and have to rely on more international imports as 
opposed to domestic production.
    I think your neighbor to the north, New York, is a striking 
counterpoint to the experience in Pennsylvania. New York does 
not allow hydraulic fracturing and yet they are a very energy-
rich State.
    So the point is, you know, that policies have consequences, 
and unfortunately Northeasterners are paying for that in their 
utility bills, which I think is one reason I am here, is that 
this is a root problem, and I think Congress is uniquely 
situation to address some of those root problems that American 
homeowners are dealing with right now.
    Senator Toomey. So you know, if people in southern New 
England are going to be burning gas, and it is a question of 
whether it is Pennsylvania gas or Russian gas, are you familiar 
at all with the difference in the environmental standards that 
are applied in the United States on gas extraction compared to 
the environmental standards applied, say, on Russian gas 
extraction?
    Ms. Tubb. Certainly. I do not know that there is another 
country, perhaps maybe Canada, that does it better than we do 
in the United States, both in terms of protecting labor and the 
environment. So when we saddle our own industry with standards 
that do not have meaningful environmental benefits all we are 
doing is granting that space in the market to somebody else--
Russia, OPEC, other Nations.
    These energy resources are demanded in the United States 
and globally, and that has not changed in decades, and the 
Energy Information Administration does not expect it will 
change for decades to come. So I think those are the realities 
that we need to have in our mind as we think about policy 
moving forward and the consequence of making the energy 
industry in the United States less competitive. It will be 
ceding ground to our competitors, not displacing energy for 
other resources.
    Senator Toomey. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chairman Brown. Thanks, Senator Toomey.
    Senator Menendez, from New Jersey, is recognized.
    Senator Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you 
for keeping the hearing open. I appreciate it. Thank you to our 
witnesses.
    There is no question that our housing stock needs to be 
expanded and revitalized. As we build to meet the challenges of 
the 21st century we should be looking to leverage the power of 
mass transit so that we can curb climate change, inducing car 
emissions.
    And that is why I led the charge with my Livable 
Communities Act, which creates a Federal grant program to 
incentivize the coordinated development of new, affordable 
housing and transit. By leveraging transportation assets, this 
legislation will spur economic development, address affordable 
housing needs, expand access to good jobs, while at the same 
time cutting carbon emissions. I am happy to see that the Build 
Back Better proposition included $4.5 billion for this 
innovative housing supply solutions.
    So Ms. Egger, should we not be strengthening our housing 
stock in conjunction with transportation hubs so that we can 
connect people to good jobs and incentivize more energy-
efficient mass transit?
    Ms. Egger. Absolutely. Thank you for the question, Senator. 
We do see that transportation is often the largest expense 
after housing and utility costs for families, and we recognize 
how much of an impact transportation has on climate change in 
regard to emissions.
    There are two examples that I can think of that give 
credence to the proposal that you are bringing up here. One is 
through our experience with Green Communities, our national 
green building program for affordable housing. We actually 
require that all new construction properties not in rural or 
tribal locations are located within half a mile of a transit 
hub for the emissions, the economic reasons that you are 
alluding to as well.
    And another example that I would like to offer is actually 
in relation to an initiative in Denver, Colorado. We actually 
just recently celebrated a significant milestone with our 
Transit-Oriented Development fund in the Denver regional area, 
where we have now invested $50 million in creating 2,100 homes 
that are transit-connected and affordable housing. And this 
type of investment, as the TOD loans are repaid the capital 
goes back into this fund which can support more developments 
which have these same attributes. So that is the type of 
example of fast, flexible, ready capital that can support these 
types of properties.
    Senator Menendez. Great. Now turning to a different topic, 
flooding is the most costly and frequent natural disaster 
homeowners face. Unfortunately, climate change is only going to 
make that worse. Right now most Federal assistance to make 
homes more resilient comes after the natural disaster. 
Communities would be much better served if the Federal 
Government would make more tools available to reduce flood 
hazards in high-risk areas before the next storm strikes. And 
for every dollar that we invest in mitigation, it has been 
proven, the Federal Government saves $6 in disaster relief 
spending. So I would like to be able to invest $1 for every $6 
that I would get back.
    Should the Federal Government not make more funding for 
predisaster mitigation and make homes more resilient to 
flooding before homeowners find themselves in harm's way?
    Ms. Egger. Absolutely, Senator. The preemptive investments 
are much less costly than fixes after the fact. If I may share 
a relevant example from my organization's experience with 
preventative flooding mitigation measures.
    We have seen these benefits first-hand. When heavy rainfall 
flooded New Orleans 5 years ago and tested the Faubourg Lafitte 
development, that enterprise the Providence Community Housing 
created and rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina, we saw that about 
5 years ago this deluge flooded the city.
    Residents found their streets waist-deep in water, but 
Lafitte escaped harm. Water did not breach the first floor of 
this building because the homes had actually been built two 
feet above baseline flood elevations. So when the water receded 
folks were able to return to their daily lives and there was no 
need to offer any claims against the National Flood Insurance 
Program because there was no harm done.
    So better underground infrastructure is needed to ensure 
that water drains quickly from cities and communities, but we 
were able to do what was within our control to reduce risk with 
that type of preemptive investment.
    Senator Menendez. My bipartisan NFIP ReAct prioritizes 
predisaster mitigation through increased cost of compliance 
coverage reforms so that homeowners are up-to-date with the 
latest building code requirements. It also creates the 
availability for elevations and improvements to the Nation's 
most flood-prone homes, and I look forward to working with the 
Chairman on it.
    May I have one last question, Mr. Chairman?
    Chairman Brown. Yes, Senator Menendez.
    Senator Menendez. Ms. Egger and Ms. Norton, can investments 
in existing Federal programs like Choice Neighborhoods be 
leveraged to address climate change by creating long-term, 
sustainable and affordable housing supply? For example, last 
year the city of Camden in my home State of New Jersey received 
a $35 million Choice Neighborhoods grant which leads to the 
development of 350 new energy-efficient units of housing and, 
at the same time as we have been discussing, improves access to 
mass transit. What do you think about that?
    Ms. Egger. I could not agree more. HUD programs like Choice 
Neighborhoods and like CDBG, DR in particular, ones in which 
can pair resilience, green, efficient building practices with 
the creation of affordable housing so that those two outcomes 
are realized simultaneous.
    Ms. Norton. Thank you, Senator, for the question. The work 
that we are doing with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities 
to build a whole-house response to occupied housing, I think 
Choice Neighborhoods can really, in Camden, build that 
infrastructure of helping to train contractors. Choice 
Neighborhoods is building and preparing neighborhoods. One of 
the things that we can do is help to train from the community 
the contractors in this resilience work and in flood mitigation 
work, but also help to map the occupied housing at risk and to 
be able to know, especially where we have our elderly, where we 
have elderly residents, or where we have people living in 
basements or in true flood risk, by using Choice Neighborhoods 
flexible dollars you are able to really build that 
infrastructure, to know ahead and do assessments and build that 
workforce capacity, and then align these dollars with 
weatherization and flexible housing to address those risks that 
occur.
    So the Choice Neighborhoods is a catalyst, in effect, to be 
able to really unlock and unleash the potential of other 
programs to get ahead of this, especially in the occupied 
housing, where you will have people much, much more at risk, in 
the older housing sector.
    Senator Menendez. Thank you for your insights. Thank you, 
Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Menendez.
    A couple comments before we close, and thank you, all three 
of you, for appearing, and Senator Toomey for your questions.
    You have both mentioned this--and it is really in the form 
of a question but I want to just kind of outline this--you both 
mentioned that formerly redlined neighborhoods are hotter than 
non-redlined neighborhoods. I read some time ago a book called 
Urban Forests, and in that book they described an aerial 
picture of LA County that Beverly Hills in the spring and 
summer it was, if I remember, 51 percent tree-covered while 
south-central L.A. was 13 percent tree-covered, and we know 
what that means in terms of energy and clean water and clean 
air and safe neighborhoods, even. And I have legislation to 
encourage urban tree canopy to lower heat and provide other 
kinds of climate benefits. So I will be talking to perhaps some 
of you about that.
    We should agree that making housing more affordable should 
be a goal for Members of this Committee on both sides. We have 
heard today how energy efficiency and safety upgrades can bring 
down housing costs and utility bills. I hope we take the 
lessons from today's hearing and work collectively to make 
investments that will lead to more stable, safer neighborhoods 
and communities.
    For Senators who wish to submit questions those questions 
are due by close of business 1 week from today, May 25th. To 
the three of you, again, thank you. Per Committee rules we ask 
that you respond to any of these questions within 45 days of 
receipt.
    Thank you again. The hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:19 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
    [Prepared statements, responses to written questions, and 
additional material supplied for the record follow:]
              PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN SHERROD BROWN
    First, I want to wish a quick and full recovery to our colleague 
Senator Van Hollen, who has been so active on these issues. We are all 
thinking of him and his family this morning.
    This morning the Banking and Housing Committee will examine how we 
can address a crisis facing millions of families--housing 
affordability. When we do this right, we lower people's energy costs 
and reduce the risk to our communities from climate change.
    Outdated HVACs and appliances and poor insulation and homes needing 
renovation cost Americans money each month on their gas and electric 
bills, and contributing to climate change.
    Around 20 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions come from 
residential buildings.
    At the same time, most homes in the United States have some risk of 
climate change-induced disasters.
    Nearly one-third of homes--about 35 million of them--are considered 
to be at high risk.
    Ask any family who has lived through a flood or a wildfire how 
devastating those disasters can be--the expense, the stress, the lost 
memories.
    Today we will hear from witnesses discussing how we can make our 
homes safer, more energy- and water-efficient, more resilient to 
natural disasters.
    Homes that we build or renovate with these goals in mind--whether 
they're manufactured housing, single-family homes, or apartments--are 
healthier, and they save on energy.
    And we know we need more homes in this country.
    For too long, we have not built enough housing to keep up with 
demand.
    In our hearings, we've heard from mayors in places like Akron and 
Bozeman and Akron that we have far fewer homes than we need--nearly 4 
million, by one estimate.
    As a Nation, we haven't invested in our affordable housing 
infrastructure. Barriers to new housing at the local level impede 
development, deny families access to opportunity, and keep prices 
artificially high.
    The result is that a multitude of policy decisions--many of them 
the legacy of Jim Crow and redlining--have helped create a national 
housing crisis that is pushing up costs for families across the 
country.
    Even before the pandemic, a quarter of all renters were paying more 
than half of their incomes for housing. Even before the pandemic.
    Due to a lack of funding, Federal housing assistance reaches only 
one fourth of the renters who need it.
    And of course, we know that wages haven't even come close to 
keeping up with housing prices.
    A year of raises for some workers don't make up for nearly a half 
century of a Wall Street business model that funnels more and more 
wealth away from the workers who create it.
    And we know that many of the affordable homes we do have are aging 
and need repairs.
    The housing shortage and high costs have been years in the making. 
And the pandemic only made things worse.
    Rents rose more than 11 percent on average between 2021 and 2022, 
while home prices rose more than 18 percent over the same period. In 
some areas, price increases have been much sharper.
    Wall Street firms and other outside investors have come into our 
communities, snapping up homes, renting them out at exorbitant rates, 
and further reducing the supply of affordable housing available to 
families.
    In his book Evicted, Matthew Desmond wrote that when families go to 
pay their bills, ``the rent eats first.''
    And for most families, after the rent or the mortgage, utility 
bills eat second. And those bills have been eating into families' 
budgets for years, too.
    We hear a lot of talk in this committee about inflation. Housing 
prices and energy bills take up a bigger and bigger chunk of families' 
budgets all the time.
    Think about the stress workers feel every month when that electric 
bill comes in the heat of summer, or the gas bill arrives in the dead 
of winter.
    In 2020, nearly a third of families said they had difficulty paying 
their energy bills, or had kept their home at an unsafe temperature 
because of energy cost concerns.
    The burden is especially high for the lowest-income families and 
people of color.
    We can bring down housing prices, and save people money on those 
bills every single month.
    Virtually any new or renovated housing will have better 
environmental performance than older homes.
    Thanks to American innovation, today we have building materials, 
technologies, and appliances that are dramatically more energy 
efficient than products from only a few years ago.
    We just need to actually get those new technologies into people's 
homes.
    Today we will hear from our witnesses how we can help all of our 
efforts work together.
    We have to do better.
    We can build more housing, protect it from fires and floods, and we 
can renovate and upgrade the homes we already have.
    That means lower emissions.
    It means jobs for building trades workers, in communities all over 
the country--installing new insulation, replacing windows, bringing in 
new appliances, removing lead paint, building new houses and 
apartments.
    It means healthier, safer housing for our children.
    And it means lower energy bills.
                                 ______
                                 
            PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR PATRICK J. TOOMEY
    First, I want to wish Sen. Van Hollen a speedy recovery. He's a 
good friend and colleague and I know all of us look forward to 
welcoming him back to the Senate and this Committee.
    Americans are needlessly facing record-high housing costs. Home 
prices have steadily appreciated since the financial crisis, and they 
have absolutely surged since the pandemic. No doubt, existing 
homeowners enjoy appreciation in the value of their homes, but first-
time buyers and renters are being priced out of markets.
    The Biden administration has correctly identified that it has a 
problem. But its proposed solutions are disastrously wrong. Just this 
week, the administration unveiled its housing affordability plan.
    Even though they purport to tackle inflation, the Administration is 
just doubling down on failed liberal housing policies. They support the 
House-passed reconciliation bill, which contemplates spending $75 
billion on housing vouchers and $80 billion for public housing. That is 
tens of billions more than what we ordinarily spend on these programs 
annually. Adding these additional billions will only further fuel 
inflation.
    They also are now considering pushing Fannie and Freddie into 
riskier activities that prior administrations understood to be too 
risky to the taxpayer. They want taxpayers to buy loans on mobile home 
sales and help finance wealthy developers building apartment buildings 
during and even before they're built.
    At least they have not yet fallen into the trap of cutting mortgage 
insurance premiums, which would only further spur demand and increase 
taxpayer exposure to risk.
    If the Administration were serious about lowering housing costs, it 
would start by removing misguided trade barriers that drive up the cost 
of building new homes. They could lift tariffs on lumber and steel, 
materials which are universally used in buildings across the country.
    In the last 3 years, American consumers paid at least $13.2 billion 
more on steel and aluminum imports. And we know lumber tariffs 
contributed to price increases too.
    Turning to today's topic: energy-efficiency and resilient housing. 
I expect we'll hear calls for more Government intervention to make 
homes more energy efficient.
    As the argument goes, families need to make their homes more energy 
efficient in response to impending climate change. ``Greening'' homes 
would have the added
    benefit of reducing energy costs. The Federal Government could push 
these efforts through energy efficiency mandates and subsidies.
    This is the wrong approach. Efficiency mandates are not free. 
Consider California's mandate that many newly constructed homes and 
buildings have solar panels.
    The New York Times notes that adding solar panels and a battery to 
a new home can raise its cost by ``$20,000 or more.'' In today's rate 
environment, that will cost a well-qualified buyer about $1,200 more 
per year. For a buyer with a more checkered credit history, it will hit 
even harder.
    The Government should not increase costs and restrict consumer 
choice by prescribing paternalistic regulations or subsidizing specific 
products. Energy efficiency is market efficiency. Manufacturers already 
have market incentives to develop energy-efficient products.
    When higher efficiency appliances and construction materials 
deliver savings that actually pay for themselves, consumers demand 
them. But, regulations that prioritize energy-efficiency over other 
consumer preferences only serve to limit consumer choice by preventing 
consumers from purchasing products based on those other preferences.
    Green subsidies are equally problematic. They are a kind of 
corporate welfare that props up uncompetitive segments of the market. 
They also mask the cost of the administration's other energy policies, 
like its restrictions on pipeline construction, that are foolishly 
driving up the cost of natural gas and other fuels in some parts of the 
country.
    We should not be considering components of the Green New Deal at a 
time when inflation is outpacing wages. And let's face the facts--
working families are falling further behind in Biden's economy. 
Families are struggling to fill up their gas tanks. Now is not the time 
to talk about mandating EV chargers or tankless water heaters.
    If Governments really want to reduce energy costs for homeowners 
and renters, it shouldn't forbid new homes from having natural gas 
hookups or mandate more energy-efficient appliances and devices with 
much higher upfront costs. This administration should instead tap 
American energy resources and increase supply-not tell people to spend 
tens of thousands more on home improvements they don't want or need.
    Today, we'll hear from Katie Tubb, a researcher on energy policy, 
who has concerns with Federal mandates and subsidies for energy 
efficiency. As she notes, this administration has placed political 
preferences in front of American needs and developed a regulatory 
regime that chokes our energy supply.
    She also explains that onerous regulations have negative 
consequences. They reduce consumer choice, and disproportionately 
burden lower-income households.
    Ms. Tubb's testimony provides important evidence as we consider 
whether energy-efficiency spending should be subsidized with taxpayer 
dollars.
    Now is not the time to sanction more spending with unproven value 
as the Government should be focused on tackling inflation. If we're 
serious about helping working families, we need to take immediate 
action.
    The Administration must eliminate tariffs on construction materials 
like lumber and steel that artificially inflate home costs. President 
Biden should also restore American energy independence and 
substantially increase our energy supply.
    And we should recognize that the energy efficiency market is 
healthy. Let's not limit consumer choice and contribute to rising 
housing costs by unnecessarily intervening.
                                 ______
                                 
                 PREPARED STATEMENT OF RUTH ANN NORTON
          President and CEO, Green & Healthy Homes Initiative
                              May 18, 2022

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                    PREPARED STATEMENT OF KATIE TUBB
   Research Fellow, Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment, The 
                          Heritage Foundation
                              May 18, 2022

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                   PREPARED STATEMENT OF KRISTA EGGER
   Vice President, Building Resilient Futures, Enterprise Community 
                                Partners
                              May 18, 2022
Introduction
    Chairman Brown, Ranking Member Toomey, and Members of the 
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on the 
urgency and opportunities to address climate change and housing 
affordability. I commend the Committee for its commitment to housing as 
a critical component of community infrastructure, jobs, and individual 
success in life.
    I am a Vice President at the nonprofit organization Enterprise 
Community Partners, where I lead our national sustainability efforts, 
including the Enterprise Green Communities, the Nation's only national 
green building program designed explicitly for affordable housing.
    Enterprise Community Partners is working to make home and community 
places of pride, power and belonging for all. In order to create that 
change, we draw on our strength as an end-to-end housing platform, 
providing programmatic and advisory services, capital and community 
development under one roof. We advocate on a nonpartisan basis for 
sound public policy at every level of Government. We develop and deploy 
programs and support community organizations on the ground nationwide. 
We invest capital to build and preserve rental homes, and we own and 
operate 13,000 apartments and provide resident services for 22,000 
people. In short, our work contributes to thriving, supportive and 
equitable communities that prioritize safe, stable and affordable 
housing options.
    Over the past 40 years, Enterprise has collaborated with thousands 
of local partners to build and preserve 873,000 affordable homes, 
invest $54 billion across all 50 States and improve millions of lives. 
Our strategic priorities are advancing racial equity, building climate 
resilience and upward mobility and creating and preserving housing 
people can afford.
    Fossil fuel usage is the accelerant for climate change. The United 
Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warns 
us that the only way to have a chance of not accelerating climate 
disasters further is to entirely eliminate building emissions, and to 
do so as quickly as possible. At Enterprise, our climate work is 
focused on equitably reducing the overall energy--particularly fossil 
fuel energy--used by housing so that we may slow the pace of climate 
change. This will protect people, homes and communities from the 
increasing impacts of extreme weather events.
    For more than 15 years, Enterprise has also been active in disaster 
recovery and promoting affordable multifamily and single-family housing 
resilience around the Nation. Our Building Resilient Futures initiative 
aims to ensure affordable homes and low- and moderate-income (LMI) 
communities can withstand the harmful impacts of extreme weather 
events. Through Enterprise's Green Communities Criteria, which we 
revised in 2020 to enhance health, energy and resilience standards, we 
have certified almost 120,000 homes. Each year, Enterprise Green 
Communities certified developments are saving $31.8 million dollars in 
energy and water costs--and they reduce carbon emissions by the 
equivalent of taking 19,870 cars off the road.
    Commitment to green standards is not a red or a blue State issue. 
We've seen this achievement in nearly every State in the country: from 
rural locations to urban, and in-between; from single-family homes to 
small multifamily buildings to high-rise properties; and from new 
construction to rehabilitation of existing homes. Rather than a luxury 
for big cities or upper-class America, green affordable housing is an 
implementable solution that has proven workable all across the Nation.
    Through our work, we have proven that climate resilience is an 
attainable reality. We are doing what we can to provide climate 
resilient housing, whether it's retrofitting existing single and 
multifamily properties or supporting the building of net zero 
properties from the ground up. For example, the State of Louisiana 
incentivizes the use of green building standards for multifamily 
affordable housing using Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC). 
Louisiana requires heavy-duty roof straps and shingles to protect 
against hurricane-force winds; emphasizes energy efficiency to reduce 
harm to the environment through carbon emissions; and requires 
elevation of properties in flood plains. Ohio and Pennsylvania are also 
committed to resilient affordable housing, requiring the use of green 
building standards for both new construction and rehabilitation seeking 
LIHTC financing. Over 300 projects in Ohio and 50 in Pennsylvania have 
certified to Enterprise Green Communities Criteria, providing 
efficient, healthy and climate resilient homes for some of their most 
vulnerable residents.
    Congress has encouraged energy efficiency for nearly 50 years to 
mitigate increasing energy costs and foster energy conservation and the 
use of renewable energy sources in community and housing development 
activities. Most significantly has been the passage of the Housing and 
Community Development Act of 1974. Title One of the Act authorizes the 
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to make grants to 
States and local governments to finance Community Development Programs, 
creating the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. Pursuant 
to the statute, CDBG funds are used ``for the support of community 
development activities including the conservation of the Nation's 
scarce energy resources, improvement of energy efficiency, and the 
provision of alternative and renewable energy sources of supply.''
    Despite our progress, the need for robust investment in affordable 
housing that is built to last is tremendous. This testimony (1) 
describes how climate change exacerbates the housing shortage and 
racial inequities; (2) highlights the steps Enterprise is taking to 
build resilient and equitable communities; and (3) recommends immediate 
actions the Federal Government can take to ensure that Federal funding 
supports the stability and prosperity of communities through 
investments in climate-ready, affordable homes.
Climate Change Exacerbates the Housing Shortage
    Increasing greenhouse gas emissions have escalated the frequency 
and intensity of natural disasters--with multibillion-dollar 
consequences. Such disasters hit LMI communities and communities of 
color hardest, putting millions of households at risk of displacement. 
This spring, the United Nations' IPCC released its most dire report 
yet--the report warns our current pace of climate change is ``code red 
for humanity.'' In 2021, the U.S. recorded at least 20 disasters that 
cost $1 billion or more in losses, totaling more than $145 billion in 
recovery costs. From a deadly derecho in Iowa, major flooding across 
the Midwest, severe winter storm in Texas, earthquakes and hurricanes 
in Puerto Rico, to wildfires in the West, one in three Americans have 
faced an extreme weather event in the past 2 years, according to a new 
Gallup survey result.
    These disasters only compound the housing shortage.
    With catastrophic events damaging homes and infrastructure on a 
scale rarely experienced before, we need to move beyond quick fixes and 
include resiliency in all aspects of rebuilding post disasters. Since 
buildings account for 29 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, 
slowing the progression of climate change requires a strategy that 
includes improving building performance. We must also reduce housing's 
vulnerability to disasters. Affordable housing is chronically 
underinsured and Federal recovery programs, while well-intentioned, are 
slow and inequitable, compounding the challenges faced by owners and 
residents.
    Rather than spending hundreds of billions every year to respond to 
disasters after they occur and rebuild structures that couldn't 
withstand these events, we have an opportunity to make an up-front 
investment in long-term resilience so that the homes built today will 
still be around for our children and grandchildren.
Climate Change Exacerbates Racial and Wealth Inequities
    Extreme weather events disproportionately affect underserved 
communities and people of color the most, which can be linked to 
housing policies from the past and present. For example, a 2020 study 
found that historically redlined neighborhoods are nearly 5 degrees 
Fahrenheit warmer compared to non-redlined neighborhoods. Similarly, a 
Boston University research found that ``urban heat islands tend to 
correlate with areas of cities that have been historically redlined and 
not invested in.'' The CDC reports that heatwaves are the deadliest of 
the climatic disasters facing cities, which affect low-income and 
people of color the most. For example, Black residents make up 50 
percent of the heat-related deaths in New York City, despite making up 
25 percent of the city's population.
    The 1995 Chicago heat wave killed 739 residents, mostly elderly and 
poor--three times as many people as Superstorm Sandy (117 victims) and 
Hurricane Harvey (107) combined--making it one of the deadliest climate 
disasters in U.S. history. A nearly identical bubble of extreme heat 
and humidity killed 114 people in 1999.
    ``It was worst in older neighborhoods in more industrialized parts 
of the city, where many of the homes and businesses had little 
ventilation and black roofs,'' said Howard Learner, executive director 
of the Environmental Law & Policy Center, based in Chicago. ``And where 
you have older buildings mixed with industrial facilities-like we have 
on the South Side of the city--they tend to be surrounded by hot 
asphalt.''
    Moreover, there are striking overlaps between contemporary flood 
risk maps and New Deal-era maps used by the Federal Government to 
assess risks in mortgage lending. These historically redlined 
neighborhoods face a greater risk of flooding today; across 38 major 
U.S. cities, more than $107 billion worth of homes at high risk for 
flooding are located in historically redlined neighborhoods, which is 
25 percent more than in non-redlined areas. These disparities reflect 
decades of disinvestment and the disproportionate climate impacts 
underserved communities face when compared to wealthier and non-
redlined areas.
    Besides being more likely to live in physically vulnerable areas 
with greater natural hazard risks due to their financial limitations, 
residents of these communities also tend to live in lower-quality homes 
that are less stable in the event of extreme weather events. These same 
individuals tend to be less likely to have the resources necessary to 
prepare for a disaster and they tend to lack the savings needed after 
disasters strike; as a result, they take longer to recover-if they 
recover at all.
    According to the Federal U.S. Global Change Research Program's 
Fourth National Climate Assessment, climate risk prevention efforts can 
reveal existing inequalities. While better-resourced communities have 
access to stronger, more resilient infrastructure and mitigation 
initiatives to address climate hazards, smaller or under-resourced 
communities lack the capacity and means to put in place a robust 
mitigation response. Enterprise has created a business continuity 
toolkit to assist affordable housing organizations with creating a 
plan, but resources are the key to effective implementation and the 
ability to respond on a community level.
    Historically marginalized communities also face higher energy 
burdens, which is only being exacerbated as temperatures rise and 
utility expenses along with it. A 2020 research study by Progress in 
Energy finds that ``Low-income households still spend a higher percent 
of their income on electricity and gas bills than any other income 
group.'' The study also finds that low-income families unable to pay 
their high energy bills have higher rates of utility shut-offs and a 
higher possibility of eviction due to nonpayment.
    At Enterprise, we recognize how critical it is to prioritize the 
unique needs of the affordable housing sector as we transition away 
from fossil fuels. We're committed to helping craft a sector-wide 
approach that achieves equitable decarbonization in affordable housing 
so that owners and residents of affordable housing are set up to 
thrive. Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) are more likely 
to live in unhealthy homes that lack access to transit and other 
resources. BIPOC communities also face a greater risk of living near 
brownfields, industrial areas and other potentially toxic spaces. 
Healthy, efficient and resilient affordable homes are key to advancing 
racial equity--and to achieving economic and environmental justice.
The Shared Economic Burden of Recovery
    Where a person lives has profound implications on education, 
health, lifetime earnings, and even life expectancy. After major 
disasters, people's lives are disrupted in countless ways. Survivors' 
stories of their experiences often start with the damage to their 
homes. They may be looking for a temporary or permanent place to live, 
trying to put together funds for repairs and to replace lost items, and 
fighting with their insurance providers. Not having a stable home 
impacts their ability to get to work and school and to access their 
medical providers. So much of this is avoidable, and we must act with 
urgency to do what is within our power to make homes safer so they can 
be a platform to more. Low-income populations and people of color are 
less likely to have the resources necessary to prepare for a storm and 
are more likely to lack savings before disasters strike. An Urban 
Institute study finds that people with financial burdens who also live 
in communities of color experience an average 31-point credit score 
decline, compared with a 4-point decline for people in majority-white 
communities, after a disaster strikes.
    There are economic repercussions for all of us when disasters 
strike. The costliest type of disaster in the U.S. is flooding. As this 
Congress well knows, the Federal Government is the largest provider of 
flood insurance through the FEMA National Flood Insurance Program 
(NFIP), which has historically operated at a substantial loss. When 
floods damage homes, the American taxpayer is generally on the hook, 
either because the property owners make claims on their NFIP policy, or 
because FEMA or other Government disaster assistance programs 
substantially cover the otherwise unmet costs of rebuilding.
    Additionally, the cost of other types of property insurance payouts 
after all types of disasters is spread across American consumers. 
Because insurance companies pool their risk, we all end up paying more 
to cover the risk of damage from major disasters, even if we live in a 
relatively low risk area and haven't ever made a claim.
    For these reasons, we have a shared economic incentive to make 
properties safer and more resilient.
Ensuring the Stability and Prosperity of our Next Generation Through 
        Investment in Green Building Standards
    Housing stability extends beyond the cost of monthly rent payments. 
It is also vital that housing is stable during moments of stress, 
whether it be an unpredictable natural disaster or extreme temperatures 
in summer or winter. Housing built or renovated using energy efficiency 
standards improves stability. It leads to more predictable utility 
expenses, a daily benefit regardless of the weather outside. Energy 
efficiency allows residents to not have to choose between paying their 
utilities, rent or putting food on the table, and it responds better to 
climate instability--ensuring a holistic affordability strategy that 
keeps residents on their feet. We must commit to energy efficiency 
standards to ensure our communities are climate-ready.
    Green building standards are those that address health and 
environmental responsibility in addition to energy; green affordable 
housing produces healthy living environments with affordable utility 
expenses. Homes that are certified to green building standards provide 
benefits to both residents and property owners. A Southface Institute 
study demonstrated that affordable housing developments certified as 
green spent 12 percent less on energy (common areas) per square foot 
than non-green affordable developments, and residents used 14 percent 
less energy per square foot. These families saved nearly $8/month and 
$96/year, which can translate to the purchase of healthier, higher 
quality food. Additionally, seniors saved more than $10/month and $122/
year on energy costs. These savings can cover the cost of 1-2 medical 
prescriptions a month.
    Based on the benefits, it may be surprising that green building 
practices are not standard across the housing sector, especially the 
affordable housing sector. Where States require or provide incentives 
for green in order to receive financing from the LIHTC program, many 
subsidized affordable housing projects do meet green building 
standards. In fact, 35 States (plus Puerto Rico, Chicago, New York 
City, and Washington, DC) incorporate green building programs such as 
Enterprise Green Communities in the standards for their Low-Income 
Housing Tax Credit programs.
    However, green building policy is not consistent across all States 
nor across all affordable housing funding streams. Where there are not 
political incentives to focus on the long term good, developers face an 
uphill battle. Developers, investors, and other stakeholders involved 
in building affordable housing must ensure that each project is 
financially viable, and concern about additional front-end costs is a 
very real factor that can deter affordable housing developers from 
building to energy efficiency and green standards, particularly as 
construction costs in general are volatile. In the current affordable 
housing financing structure, it is challenging, if not impossible, for 
developers to include additional upfront costs to include these 
efficiencies and strategies--even where the savings and benefits are 
quickly realized by owners and residents--because first costs are the 
basis for financing decisions, not total cost of ownership/operation.
    Without a concerted and coordinated effort, much housing around the 
country will be built or renovated without green building standards and 
will be unprepared to meet the demands of a changing climate, causing 
unnecessary risk to human life and resulting in increased costs. It is 
essential for the Federal Government to lead the way, providing multi-
pronged solutions that holistically address educational, capacity, 
policy, institutional and capital barriers in order to ensure that 
affordable housing does not exacerbate climate change and is prepared 
to withstand its impacts.
    Enterprise Green Communities is the Nation's only national green 
building program designed explicitly with and for the affordable 
housing sector. Today, because of our efforts over the past 15-plus 
years, more than half the States in the Nation recognize the added 
value that green building certification provides by requiring or 
incentivizing compliance with our standard.
    Our newest program version (2020) was developed to translate the 
collective expertise of leading housing and green building 
practitioners into a clear, cost-effective framework for all affordable 
housing types. The newest version includes a Path to Zero Energy, 
enhanced water quality standards, and a new approach to resilient 
affordable housing in rural areas. The benefits of green building are 
clear, attainable and significant, and will ensure that affordable 
housing is not only built, but is stable, healthy, efficient and 
climate-ready for many years to come.
    Innovative State and regional programs have shown the impact of 
investing in resilient community development that integrates housing 
and transportation in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and 
support sustainable, connected neighborhoods. In California, for 
example, the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities program 
creates affordable housing conveniently located near the places 
families need to go-such as jobs, grocery stores, and schools, while 
also investing in transportation infrastructure that help make walking, 
biking, and taking public transit safe and convenient options. Designed 
specifically to benefit low-income communities--disproportionately 
communities of color-that have been historically excluded from 
community-serving investments, local innovations like this demonstrate 
how we can integrate and advance our goals for housing, transportation, 
climate resilience, and addressing longstanding patterns of racialized 
disinvestment. Federal funding could scale programs like this, which 
through an integrated approach create transformational community and 
societal benefits larger than the sum of any one of its parts.
    Our changing climate creates enormous challenges. How we design, 
build and operate buildings will affect the pace of climate change. 
Healthy living environments with affordable utility expenses are 
possible. And they are critical to the future of resilient communities.
Decarbonization and Health
    Housing stability and housing quality are two of the best 
researched social determinants of health and are directly linked to 
improved health outcomes of residents, plus decreased health care 
costs. Retrofitting homes for affordability, resilience and energy 
efficiency offers an opportunity to ensure exactly these benefits.
    By electrifying homes and removing natural gas utilities and 
appliances, we can address sources of pollution that directly impact 
respiratory health. Children living in homes with gas stoves are at 
higher risk of experiencing asthma. Combustion emissions from the 
building sector are responsible for the largest share (37 percent) of 
premature deaths associated with air pollution nationally.
    An investment in housing infrastructure is also an investment in 
climate solutions.
    Housing is responsible for 17 percent of U.S. economywide net 
climate emissions--almost 1 billion metric tons per year--from heating, 
cooling and other uses of energy. To meet the administration's new goal 
of a 50 percent emissions cut by 2030, the U.S. will have to 
dramatically slash these housing emissions through deep energy 
efficiency upgrades, electrification and the use of clean energy 
sources. A recent study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory 
found that electrification even without a low-carbon electric grid 
could reduce emissions by roughly 40 percent.
    Prioritizing decarbonization in the affordable housing sector, and 
particularly for communities of color, is critical, given the housing 
disinvestment in these communities. Without an explicit focus on a just 
transition away from fossil fuels in the affordable housing sector, 
health and wealth disparities will likely only be exacerbated.
    To eliminate all emissions--and to make decarbonization financially 
viable--buildings must reduce energy usage and move to clean, renewable 
sources. Building-wide energy-efficiency upgrades and the installation 
of highly efficient electric equipment will reduce emissions and 
improve health and comfort simultaneously. Together, these are the 
necessary first steps for decarbonization in the affordable housing 
sector. Developers should default to electric power for all new 
construction properties and follow guidelines such as Enterprise Green 
Communities Plus to implement efficiency and healthy housing 
strategies. It is much more cost-effective to implement at the design 
stage than to undergo an expensive retrofit in just a few years.
    Affordable homes in rural communities in particular often have poor 
efficiency, outdated heating and cooling technology and an overreliance 
on expensive and higher polluting fuels, making them a promising target 
for reduced energy burdens and healthier living through building 
decarbonization. Investing in carbon-free housing will also create jobs 
and economic opportunity. In some markets, initiatives are already 
underway to upgrade affordable housing at scale:

    Enterprise's Green Communities Criteria and programs have 
        demonstrated the sector's ability to implement healthy, 
        efficient, disaster-resilient and environmentally responsible 
        practices.

    RMI's REALIZE and New York's RetrofitNY programs are 
        catalyzing new market-based approaches to zero-emissions 
        retrofits.

    New Federal funding would enable these models to scale 
significantly and create a chance for achieving the magnitude of 
emissions reduction necessary in our existing building stock. It would 
stimulate new jobs, drive down retrofit costs, and help a new sector of 
the economy to thrive long beyond the funding influx. These investments 
and job opportunities exist in every county in America. More workers 
will be able to access wealth-building jobs and opportunities for 
minority and women-owned businesses in these sectors will increase.
    Building properties to be electrification-ready if gas is still the 
most economical choice at the time of construction is an option that 
provides building developers, owners and operators flexibility. 
Including the proper prewiring, outlets and breaker boxes--and adequate 
amperage in the electrical panel for the appliances (heat pump space 
heaters, heat pump water heaters, induction cooktops/ranges, and 
dryers)--at initial construction is more cost-effective than when later 
required for a retrofit. For example, electric dryers require a 240-
volt outlet (new ones must have a 4-prong plug) per National Electric 
Code (NEC), Section 210.63. Per code, heat pumps require a breaker 
between 15-60 amps and inverter heat pump units with a heat output of 5 
kW or more are required to have a dedicated circuit.
    It's far easier to add electrical wires and service to a building 
in design than to add wiring to an existing structure. If all-electric 
homes can be built, that is much more preferrable than installing 
infrastructure for nonrenewable sources of energy which we expect will 
eventually become obsolete. Costs of rewiring homes currently powered 
by nonelectric sources include the cost of wires, outlets, panels, 
switches, labor, and miscellaneous supplies, not to mention the 
disruption to residents and the building operations team. Per 
Homeadvisor.com, the cost to upgrade an electrical panel to a higher 
amperage is about $2500 for a home. Federal investment is needed to 
support these types of upgrades since the electrification of existing 
buildings--paired with deep energy retrofits--is also necessary to 
eliminate emissions.
    New all-electric homes are cost-competitive with those that use gas 
in many parts of the country, but investment is necessary for 
retrofits, which are essential to succeed with our climate goals. The 
decision to provide gas appliances at the time of construction due to 
current utility costs should also take into account projected utility 
costs, as eventual appliance conversion is required and appliance 
service life is generally 10-20 years. The city of San Francisco found 
the estimated cost of an electrical retrofit of appliances in 
residences ranges from a low of $14,363 per housing unit up to $19,574 
for multifamily units and $34,790 for single-family homes. Costs 
include disposal of old appliances, purchase of new appliances, labor 
and electrical panel upgrades. Per unit costs for performing deep 
energy retrofits of existing buildings, along with rewiring for 
electrification, may average $30,000.
The Need To Protect Our Current Housing Stock From the Impacts of 
        Climate Change
    Despite growing interest and commitment, our housing, 
infrastructure, and regions are not mitigating or adapting at the 
necessary pace of change. It is time for America to invest in modern 
infrastructure that is built to last.
    A recent study by Climate Central estimates that ``by 2050, 
virtually every coastal State is expected to have at least some 
affordable housing exposed to more than one coastal flood risk event 
per year, on average--up from about half of coastal States in the year 
2000.'' Yet nearly 200,000 federally subsidized rental housing units 
are located in floodplains. Another report from NYU Furman Center 
projects that 30 million people live in the combined 100-year and 500-
year flood plains, mostly low-income and communities of color.
    Fortifying the Nation's housing stock will mean getting families 
back to their routines more quickly after disasters and will also 
improve economic outcomes for families, communities, and the taxpayers 
as a whole. At Enterprise we focus primarily on the people most at risk 
of harm from disasters and least likely to rebound quickly, including 
elders and low-income families who rent their homes.
    At Enterprise, we don't just take it on faith that incorporating 
resilience measures saves money. We saw that firsthand in 2017 when a 
very heavy rainfall flooded New Orleans and tested the new Faubourg-
Lafitte development which Enterprise and Providence Community Housing 
rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina. The deluge overwhelmed the city's 
drainage systems. Residents found their streets waist-deep in water, 
but our development escaped harm. Water did not breach the first floor 
of our property because the homes had been built two feet above the 
base flood elevation, taking into consideration the possibility of 
future flooding. These homes were unharmed, so residents could quickly 
get back to their daily lives in their own homes once the water 
receded, and there was no need to make a claim on the development's 
National Flood Insurance Program policy. Better underground 
infrastructure is needed throughout the city to allow water to drain 
more quickly, but our efforts to do what was within our own control to 
minimize risk paid off.
    Enterprise recommends appropriations used for construction take 
into consideration current and future risk of harm due to climate 
change, which disproportionally impacts low-income and communities of 
color. Protecting Federal investments from foreseeable risks ensures 
that taxpayer dollars are invested in projects that will deliver 
maximum results.
    A study released by the National Association of Home Builders 
reports that building to the International Residential Code (IRC) was 
very effective in preventing the destruction of homes due to wind 
during Hurricanes Harvey and Irma and resulted in significantly less 
damage to wall and roof coverings and loss of those components while 
also minimizing window breakage. Very few homes constructed in Texas 
after 2003 suffered severe damage to roof sheathing, wall sheathing and 
framing or total loss and collapse of those components. Similarly, very 
few homes constructed in Florida after 2008 suffered severe damage to 
roof sheathing, wall sheathing and framing or total loss and collapse 
of those components. Since future disasters are inevitable, enforcing 
the most current building codes is crucial. According to the
    National Institute of Building Sciences, Federal grants for climate 
hazard mitigation save $6 for every $1 invested. Since 1995, public-
sector investment in mitigation through Federal agencies such as FEMA, 
EDA, and HUD cost the country $27 billion but will ultimately save $160 
billion, meaning $6 saved per $1 invested.
    Congress should ensure that Federal funding supports the stability 
and prosperity of communities through investments in climate-ready, 
affordable homes.
    With catastrophic climate events happening with more frequency and 
intensity, it is critical to bolster the supply of safe, resilient, and 
climate-ready rental housing, especially in more vulnerable low-income 
communities and communities of color; rental communities typically take 
longer to recover from these events. Not only that, but as utility 
burdens have become exacerbated during the pandemic, it is more 
important than ever to maximize the energy and water efficiency of the 
affordable housing stock. The Administration and Congressional 
Leadership have proposed historic investments in housing and community 
development programs, which would not only provide crucial funding to 
tackle the drastic housing shortage, but would also advance energy-
efficient and resilient housing and address the growing climate crisis. 
Incorporating renewable energy systems into the creation and 
preservation of affordable rental housing can also help address 
existential threats to renters' health and wealth in a cost-effective 
way.
    Included in the $150 billion in proposed housing investments in the 
reconciliation package are approx. $3 billion for the Community 
Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, a critical resource for 
communities nationwide to invest in low- and moderate-income 
neighborhoods and produce and preserve both owned and rental housing; 
approx. $15 billion for the national Housing Trust Fund (HTF); and 
approx. $10 billion for the HOME Investment Partnership Program (HOME). 
In terms of climate provisions, $2 billion is included for improving 
the energy efficiency, water efficiency, or climate resilience of 
affordable housing; $3 billion for the Community Restoration and 
Revitalization Fund, which provides competitive grants to local 
projects led by nonprofits aimed at affordable housing activities in 
rural, suburban, and urban areas; and $250 million for the CDFI Housing 
and Livable Communities Financing, which provides funding for the CDFI 
Fund to expand investments that reduce emissions; increase energy, 
water, and location efficiency; increase housing safety; increase 
resilience; or prepare for extreme weather in low-income, underserved, 
and distressed communities.
    Other noteworthy investments to advance sustainable and equitable 
communities include $5 billion for lead-based paint hazard control and 
housing related health and safety hazard mitigation; approx. $1.8 
billion for the Unlocking Possibilities Program, a new grant program 
that would award flexible funding to jurisdictions that take steps to 
reduce barriers to producing affordable housing and expand housing 
choices for people with low- or moderate-incomes; and $800 million for 
fair housing activities and investigations.
    In addition to this much-needed funding, Congressional leadership 
proposes to strengthen and expand LIHTC, which is responsible for 
nearly all of the affordable housing built and preserved across the 
country. With an affordability period of at least 30 years, that stands 
the test of time. Increasingly, States also are focused on strategies 
to increase energy and water efficiency as well as the health of 
properties to improve financial performance, keep rent and utilities 
affordable, and provide healthier homes for residents.
    As noted above, green building certification programs such as our 
Green Communities Criteria have been adopted or incentivized by 35 
States for LIHTC because they are affordable and scalable. Enterprise 
Green Communities certification is required in several States, 
including Ohio, Georgia and Michigan (for both new construction and 
rehabilitation), and Florida, Iowa and Missouri for new construction. 
Additionally, a growing number of States encourage properties to pursue 
third-party standards that require deeper energy savings, like 
Enterprise Green Communities Plus, Passive House, or the U.S. 
Department of Energy's Zero Energy Ready Homes. A recent study by the 
Colorado Housing and Finance Authority found that standard efficiency 
all-electric design reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 32 percent over 
the 50-year life of a LIHTC property. By strengthening and expanding 
the LIHTC program, we also strengthen the country's resilient and 
energy-efficient affordable housing stock.
    We recognize that with affordable housing, opportunities for 
investment are rare, and there is no margin for a failed experiment. 
This is why it is so critical to ensure that all (new) housing that 
receives Federal financial support is verifiably green.
    Specific recommendations:

    Bolster Federal Incentives and Requirements for Healthy, 
        Efficient, Climate-Ready Housing. Congress should set resilient 
        building standards as the minimum quality standard for all new 
        construction and substantial rehabilitation projects built with 
        agency dollars, ensuring that Federal funding supports climate-
        ready, affordable buildings. Minimum standards must be enforced 
        to ensure that when we are rehabilitating and building 
        affordable housing that we are making climate-ready homes. 
        These standards will ensure that whether a resident is facing 
        the slow creep of rising temperatures or the sharp impact of a 
        hurricane, that they are able to survive and thrive. Some HUD 
        programs such as the Choice Neighborhoods Program and the CDBG-
        Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program have implemented building 
        standards that address both climate change mitigation and 
        adaptation. However, there are not common or consistent 
        standards across all Federal programs, leading to grantee 
        confusion. We also recommend the inclusion of technical 
        assistance to ensure local jurisdictions and their stakeholders 
        have the technical expertise needed to implement and ensure 
        compliance with applicable standards.

    Encourage Strong Building Codes in All New Construction. A 
        study released in November 2021 by FEMA shows that modern 
        building codes continue to be one of the most cost-effective 
        ways to safeguard against natural disasters. If all new 
        construction adopts modern building codes, it could result in a 
        $600 billion loss avoidance by 2060. Despite this, 65 percent 
        of counties, cities and towns across the country still have not 
        adopted modern building codes. Building codes have greatly 
        improved society's disaster resilience, while adding only about 
        1 percent to construction costs relative to 1990 standards. For 
        example, building 1 foot above the 100-year flood elevation is 
        cost effective, adding $90 million of construction cost per 
        year for new construction, but saving $550 million in 
        rebuilding costs, a 6-to-1 benefit-cost ratio. Building code 
        hurricane requirements save an average of $10 per $1 of added 
        cost, with benefit-cost ratios that reach as high as 30 to 1. 
        Similarly, enhanced earthquake design requirements save $7 
        billion per year for a $600 million investment at the time of 
        construction, with benefit-cost ratios reaching as high as 32 
        to 1. In terms of existing buildings, by investing $500 billion 
        in retrofits, the Nation can save over $2.2 trillion in loss 
        avoidance.

    Provide Stable Recovery Funding to Disaster-Stricken 
        Communities. As the only source for Federal long-term disaster 
        housing recovery funding, HUD's CDBG-DR program plays a crucial 
        role in rebuilding homes and restoring livelihoods for people 
        of modest means. CDBG-DR has become a critical safeguard for 
        filling any unmet needs after funding from insurance proceeds, 
        FEMA grants, and other homeowner loans have been insufficient 
        to repair their homes or get them to stable new housing. CDBG-
        DR also allows States and localities to rebuild in a forward-
        facing manner so that Federal dollars do not put people back in 
        harm's way. But unlike FEMA's disaster recovery programs, CDBG-
        DR cannot reach communities quickly because despite the fact 
        that more than $90 billion in taxpayer dollars have gone to the 
        program since its inception in 1993, as this Committee well 
        knows, it is not permanently authorized. Enterprise strongly 
        supports the permanent authorization of CDBG-DR through the 
        bipartisan Reforming Disaster Recovery Act, which would improve 
        outcomes for families across the country by providing long-term 
        recovery funds to disaster-stricken communities in a more 
        efficient and equitable way.

    Incentivize Private Investments in Resilience. We strongly 
        support the National Green Bank proposal to support the rapid 
        deployment of low- and zero-emission technologies, as well as 
        to invest in nonprofit financing institutions designed to 
        support projects that reduce or avoid emissions by leveraging 
        investment from the private sector. It is critical to ensure 
        that any creation of a National Green Bank dedicates a portion 
        of the investments to benefit low-income and disadvantaged 
        communities, including through affordable housing.

    Engage Residents in the Resilience Planning and Recovery 
        Process. Inclusive public participation is a critical component 
        of preparedness, particularly during mitigation and 
        preplanning, both to educate people about their personal risk 
        and to involve them in community-informed solutions, ensuring 
        everyone has the opportunity to thrive. Resources should also 
        be available in a variety of formats and various languages to 
        ensure greater and equitable access to information.

    Incentivize Equitable Transition Away From Fossil Fuels. 
        The Federal Government must provide an overhaul of existing 
        incentives, as well as new transformative investments for 
        equitable electrification and deep energy retrofits. There is a 
        need to eliminate barriers and disincentives for the affordable 
        housing community to use existing Federal resources. We 
        recommend the Federal Government review and revise as 
        appropriate, all Federal energy efficiency and clean energy 
        policies and incentives to ensure viability with the LMI 
        market, including:

      the resolution of the current incompatibility of the 
        Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) funding with LIHTC 
        basis; and

      the exclusion of community solar from utility allowance 
        calculations.

    We also ask Congress to ensure that all new homes receiving Federal 
        support are electric or be built with adequate infrastructure 
        to be electric-ready, and all replacements for systems at the 
        end of their useful life that are not using clean renewable 
        sources of power are converted to systems that do.

    Provide at Least $50 Million for HUD's Section 4 Program in 
        THUD Appropriations Bill for FY23. Section 4 funds have often 
        been utilized by CDCs and CHDOs to ramp up their capacity so 
        that they can provide immediate support to communities facing 
        overwhelming housing damage after a large-scale disaster. CDCs 
        have typically used and benefitted from Section 4 funds by 
        strengthening general organizational capacity, initiating needs 
        assessments, and creating new full-time staff positions that 
        will provide local partners with critical ongoing support. 
        Recently, for example, these funds have aided disaster recovery 
        efforts following the 2017 and 2018 hurricanes in Texas, North 
        Carolina, and Florida, as well as home repair projects in areas 
        impacted by the California wildfires.

    On behalf of Enterprise, I offer my thanks to Chairman Brown, 
Ranking Member Toomey, and all the Members of this Committee for your 
bipartisan leadership on these issues and the recognition of a need for 
bold action to move our country forward in a more climate-ready and 
equitable direction. Additional Federal investment in key housing 
programs will enable safer building decisions, which lower the economic 
consequences of extreme weather events and help prevent future risk. My 
Enterprise colleagues and I look forward to partnering with you to 
uplift affordable housing and community development policies that 
advance racial equity and climate resilience, so that hard-working 
families can all have a safe home to return to at the end of every day.
               RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF
           SENATOR CORTEZ MASTO FROM RUTH ANN NORTON

Q.1. The HVAC industry is facing a severe labor shortage, with 
as many as 80,000 HVAC jobs remaining unfilled; this number 
will increase.
    What specific recommendations do you have for Congress to 
improve workforce capacity for HVAC and other critical green 
sector construction jobs?

A.1. In our experience, barriers to housing-related jobs come 
down to three principal areas: (1) concern that there is not a 
sustainable source of revenue or market for the work, (2) 
inadequate training resources for the specific skills, (3) 
entry barriers for individuals from diverse communities. 
Regarding the first barrier, the Green & Healthy Homes 
Initiative (GHHI) has focused on establishing aligned programs 
and braided funding streams, so HVAC resources in a community 
are well known across all of the potential funding sources and 
programs. This allows potential HVAC contractors and workers to 
know that there is a sustained market for their work, which 
incentivizes a workforce to meet the market. If potential 
workers and contractors feel like resources will come and go, 
year to year, with no guarantee of consistent work over a 
period of time, they are reluctant to enter the market. For the 
second area, GHHI has found success with building upon 
workforce development programs and promoting cross training for 
workers. As an example, GHHI partnered with Center for 
Employment Opportunity (CEO) around a comprehensive green and 
healthy homes training program where workers were not only 
trained as weatherization technicians but certified as Home 
Performance and HVAC contractors. This allowed the workers to 
have flexibility and income across multiple areas of the 
building trades, reducing the risk that any one area having a 
lower demand would cause significant financial harm to the 
worker. A study of the trainees graduating from the program 
found that workers who had the broad set of training and 
certifications including HVAC averaged $4,000 to $8,000 more in 
annual income compared to workers trained to just one 
individual certification. Regarding the third barrier, GHHI has 
established bilingual workforce training in places like Rhode 
Island, Maryland, Tennessee, and Michigan that is centered in 
Black and Brown communities to provide comprehensive soft and 
hard skills training through the building trades training as 
well as establishing partnerships with minority-owned 
contractors and Black and Brown led organizations to build a 
pipeline from training to permanent work. GHHI has utilized 
partnerships with philanthropy, Government, and the private 
sector to cover apprenticeship costs incentivizing firms to 
bring in newly trained workers at full wages and benefits.

Q.2. How can we further direct young people, particularly those 
from low-income and marginalized communities, into this sector?

A.2. GHHI work is deeply centered on equity and designs its 
workforce development programs to focus on unemployed and 
under-employed youth in historically disinvested communities. 
It is how GHHI established and has maintained its contractor, 
health educator and assessment programs in Baltimore, Memphis 
and throughout the US. The aspect of our workforce development 
that has been most effective is the focus on cross training and 
certifying across aligned skillsets to encompass climate, 
energy efficiency, resilience, and healthy housing. Not only 
does this provide a stronger skill set, but it also offers a 
better paying career pathway in the short and long term. By 
providing training and certifications across multiple 
disciplines, this builds flexible skill sets providing greater 
options to steer career opportunities in public and 
environmental health, construction, and other building trades. 
The cross-skills training has proven to offer better wage 
opportunities, a greater focus on community-driven jobs and the 
formation of community-based contractors. We have found this to 
be a particularly good selling point for the younger employment 
sector as well as seasoned individuals. The ability to be part 
of the solution in terms of improving their neighborhoods is a 
win-win for the youth sector entering into this work.

Q.3. What markets are impacted by the lack of these technical 
workers? Rural, inner-city? What are some downstream effects?

A.3. Both rural and urban markets are impacted by a lack of 
cross-trained contractors as it creates higher failure rates in 
individualized programs and often leads to incomplete services. 
This is true especially in rural communities where a bundled 
skill set is critically needed due to overall lack of 
sufficient contractor capacity in all sectors.
    Without a significant workforce trained to conduct an 
aligned, integrated whole-house approach to climate, energy 
efficiency and healthy housing interventions in occupied 
residential housing in low-income communities, we continue to 
leave people in unhealthy housing conditions that undermine the 
social and structural determinants of health, opportunity, and 
equity. In addition to maintaining avoidable costs to our 
health, energy, and education systems, we continue to pay a 
higher cost of service delivery for local governments and fail 
to lower carbon emissions among other metrics.

Q.4. Cooling is energy intensive and a large source of carbon 
emissions.
    What are some of the innovations in providing new ways to 
deliver cooling?

A.4. Regarding cooling, innovations that reduce energy demand, 
increase efficiency, and consume less carbon-based energy 
sources are all providing more and better options for 
sustainability. As discussed below in Answer 5, better design 
processes can reduce the demand for cooling in both new and 
existing housing. When providing cooling, one of the most 
important innovations has been the increase in affordability 
and performance of heat pump technologies that can provide both 
cooling and heating efficiently through the use of electricity. 
Distinct types of heat pump technology can effectively meet the 
needs of small, large, and manufactured housing units with or 
without ducts. New air source models can efficiently provide 
heat in freezing and subfreezing temperatures, as demonstrated 
by programs in Maine and Vermont. Especially compared to older 
central AC units and window units, they can provide more 
effective cooling at higher rates of efficiency, thus saving 
customers money and reducing grid demand in the summer. They 
also provide an important path forward to reducing carbon 
emissions because they run on electricity that can be generated 
by renewable energy. This can even come from solar units 
installed on the property. Another potential innovation is the 
use of geothermal technologies. For projects that can absorb 
the higher initial costs, the reliability and affordability of 
relying on the energy found in the ground where temperatures 
are stable year-round has enormous potential. Ground-source 
heat pumps can utilize this technology to operate like a 
traditional AC unit to provide both heating and cooling. These 
technologies are being deployed in pilot programs both for 
individual homes as well as through district systems in places 
like Framingham, MA, and Philadelphia, PA.

Q.5. How can Congress support building designs which cool 
naturally instead of relying on external energy sources?

A.5. Congress should consider incentives or directions to 
administrative agencies to adopt standards for the design and 
construction of buildings that cool naturally. Natural cooling 
can include design elements such as enhanced ventilation, 
measures to block sunlight, the use of thermal mass (dense 
materials such as adobe or masonry), and other measures. 
However, as the effects of climate change become more acute, 
the majority of the country faces more intense heat - which has 
a direct impact on morbidity and mortality especially for older 
adults and those with respiratory diseases. Natural cooling 
alone may not be adequate to ensure the health and safety of 
residents. This is especially true in low-income communities 
and others that have experienced deep disinvestment in 
maintaining a healthy housing stock. Growing research suggests 
these communities face higher heat threats. For these 
communities, Congress should explore directing standards for 
cooling as a core health and safety measure and ensure cooling 
standards, techniques and technologies that are deployed 
equitably.
    Passive housing provides an example of building standards 
that can minimize heating and cooling demands. Passive housing 
includes (1). Thermal control through continuous insulation 
without thermal bridging, (2). Air control through airtight 
building envelop and balanced ventilation with heat and 
moisture recovery (3). Radiation control through high 
performance windows with effective glazing and shading 
strategies (4). Moisture control through material choices and 
humidity maintenance, (5). A space conditioning system sized 
for the smaller load. (Passive House Institute U.S., Inc., 
``What Is Passive Building: Passive House Principles'', PHIUS, 
2015, https://www.phius.org/what-is-passive-building/passive-
house-principles.)

Q.6. What incentives can Congress provide local and State 
governments to incorporate climate resilience into their 
housing investments?

A.6. One important change would be not just having efficiency 
programs achieve reductions in electricity consumption, but 
also to set goals to achieve greenhouse gas reduction which 
will allow total energy consumption (and cost) to fall, as well 
as prepare homes to meet the future climate and energy needs. 
Programs should model costs based on the best predictions for 
future climate demands as well as future energy costs 
considering not just the volumetric costs of each unit 
consumed, but also the other costs on customers' bills such as 
distribution and maintenance costs that are likely to change as 
the number of customers on each energy system changes. With 
this in mind, programs should allow for more fuel switching as 
appropriate which will serve a wider range of households 
better. Align housing programs with health and energy to 
increase investment and provide more comprehensive services. 
Finally, pairing climate resilience programs with flexible 
funds to provide health and safety interventions will ensure we 
are meeting the needs of all Americans, including those with 
low incomes and communities of color that are more often living 
in substandard housing.
                                ------                                


       RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR WARNOCK
                      FROM RUTH ANN NORTON

Q.1. With hurricane season just around the corner, it is 
another reminder of how many of our Georgia's communities are 
standing in harm's way and could be effected by a devastating 
climate event that could cause the loss of life and property. 
In many cases, these communities are often lacking the 
resources needed to undertake critical mitigation measures to 
protect themselves. Although FEMA's Building Resilient 
Infrastructure and Communities program is able to offer 
assistant to a significant number of communities, they may not 
be able to assist every community in need. Would you please 
discuss the challenges faced by our Nation's low- and moderate-
income (LMI) and underserved communities when it comes to 
resiliency and what Congress can do to drive resources where 
they are needed most?

A.1. Low-income communities are typically the most highly 
burdened, especially when they are communities of color that 
are more likely to live in high risk areas with increased 
pollution from hazardous waste or worse civic infrastructure. 
These highly burdened homes pay a higher proportion of their 
income to energy, not just because of their lower income 
levels, but because of housing that lacks proper insulation, 
leaks air, and is heated or cooled with older and less 
efficient appliances. Because these households are already 
highly burdened, during disasters or extreme weather events 
they are often the least able to absorb additional costs for 
energy, repairs, or relocation. They are also often living in 
the locations hit hardest by extreme heat, flooding, and 
utility shutoffs. Even when households want to invest in 
upgrades through their own resources or through assistance 
programs, many low-income households must rely on property 
owners to make or approve upgrades. We need to provide 
resources to help build resilience, and the proper programs, 
regulations, and incentives so that all households meet a basic 
standard of health and resilience. We must pay particular 
attention to making sure programs work for older housing with 
deferred maintenance issues and for houses occupied by 
individuals that do not own the property themselves.
    Resilience to the impacts of climate change must include 
investments that recognize the effects of climate change on 
large, vulnerable infrastructure. For example, during and after 
Hurricane Ida, nearly one hundred (100) people died; many of 
their deaths were the direct result of power loss and resulting 
heat exposure. Hurricane Ida took down eight critical electric 
transmission lines and tens of thousands of poles carrying 
lower-voltage power lines to homes and businesses. This type of 
large infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable to climate 
change. While it is important to invest in hardening this 
infrastructure, it is even more critical to invest in 
community-level and household-level resilience. Community 
resilience hubs and residential homes - particularly homes with 
critical equipment such as medical devices powered by 
electricity - must receive investments to protect the health 
and safety of communities during and after natural disasters. 
Solar-plus-storage systems are very promising in this regard. 
Furthermore, homes must be fully assessed to receive evidenced-
based interventions to withstand other risks, such as flooding. 
Increasingly, as floods increase, they will become more 
dangerous for lowincome families. And the danger increases as 
climate-related flooding destroys not only housing but 
community infrastructure such as transportation. Thus, 
investments for resilience must be targeted at the household 
and community level.

Q.2. According to the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of 
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, ``In the five States 
with the highest low-income energy burden--Georgia, 
Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, and Arkansas--low-income 
households use 36 percent more electricity than the low-income 
national average.'' The burden this places on low-income 
Georgians is concerning, and I believe more must be done to 
boost home energy efficiency and improve the financial standing 
of these families.
    What additional investments are needed from Congress to 
lessen this energy burden on households in Georgia?

A.2. To reduce energy burden, investments are needed in both 
the housing and the energy systems. In housing, we need to 
improve the building structure and efficiency of the heating or 
cooling systems. New technologies represent a great opportunity 
to provide better living conditions at high efficiency, but to 
ensure that these investments achieve maximum value and that 
the residents are confident they can remain in the house 
safely, we need to invest in the structure of the home by 
pairing weatherization with health and safety interventions. 
Years of disinvestment and deferred maintenance have left too 
many communities without healthy and safe housing options, and 
we are paying the price with devastating health and energy 
usage consequences.
    Further, investments must be made to optimize the cost-
effectiveness of the energy system. This can be accomplished by 
ensuring energy providers are investing smartly in new, clean, 
and costeffective sources of energy such as wind and solar; 
and, that they are not investing in outdated and dirty sources 
of energy. Moreover, investment in clean energy technologies 
such as onsite solar and energy storage can be incredibly 
impactful for reducing energy burden of low-income families. 
Successful solar programs are in place in States such as 
Connecticut, Washington DC, Colorado, and other States that 
Congress can look to, and that Georgia can look to. Clean 
energy programs for low-income households are beginning to 
examine the energy affordability benefits as well as the 
resilience benefits of adding energy storage. Congress can 
invest in programs like this to reduce energy burden.

Q.3. How will these investments improve the financial well-
being of low-income Georgians who currently struggle with this 
energy burden?

A.3. Most low-income households with high energy burdens 
struggle to afford their utility bills leaving them at risk of 
shutoffs and disconnections, as well as sacrificing their own 
health when residents try to make ends meet by living in 
unhealthy temperatures or reducing spending on other basic 
needs like food or medical care. Reducing energy burden 
improves mental, physical, and financial well-being. Keeping 
energy bills reasonable will ensure that utilities are paid on 
time for the energy they deliver as well. Some current programs 
that seek to address energy burden, like energy bill payment 
assistance, do not serve to address the sources of high energy 
burden. Bill payment assistance programs are important, but 
they can be a band-aid. Investing in holistic solutions to 
combine health and safety measures, weatherization, energy 
efficiency, and clean energy/carbon emissions reduction can 
better address the sources of the problem and lead to sustained 
improvements to energy affordability. And will create immense 
savings in federally supported budgets such as Medicaid and 
CHIP.
                                ------                                


        RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR CRAPO
                       FROM KRISTA EGGER

Q.1. Wildfires, many of which are more intense than we have 
seen in the past, continue to rage across the western United 
States. According to the National Interagency Fire Center 
(NIFC), wildfires have burned over 1.3 million acres across the 
Nation already this year, which outpaces the 10-year average 
for this point in the year by more than 70 percent. These 
wildfires are putting lives, homes and entire neighborhoods in 
harm's way. And alarmingly, when you look across the disaster 
funding landscape, there is little dedicated funding 
specifically to wildfire mitigation for private property 
owners. Further, in the first year's round of BRIC funding 
being distributed this year, just one project focused on risk-
reducing wildfire mitigation activities was selected.
    What specific actions can homeowners can take to reduce the 
chances of wildfire damage?
    Should the Federal Government create a funding stream 
focused on wildfire mitigation activities for private property 
owners?
    How do you suggest the Federal Government goes about 
creating such a program?
    Which Federal agency should be responsible for housing a 
program like this?

A.1. Response not received in time for publication.
                                ------                                


               RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF
             SENATOR CORTEZ MASTO FROM KRISTA EGGER

Q.1. The HVAC industry is facing a severe labor shortage, with 
as many as 80,000 HVAC jobs remaining unfilled; this number 
will increase.
    What specific recommendations do you have for Congress to 
improve workforce capacity for HVAC and other critical green 
sector construction jobs?
    How can we further direct young people, particularly those 
from low-income and marginalized communities, into this sector?
    What markets are impacted by the lack of these technical 
workers? Rural, inner-city? What are some downstream effects?

A.1. Response not received in time for publication.

Q.2. Cooling is energy-intensive and a large source of carbon 
emissions.
    What are some of the innovations in providing new ways to 
deliver cooling?
    How can Congress support building designs which cool 
naturally instead of relying on external energy sources?
    What incentives can Congress provide local and State 
governments to incorporate climate resilience into their 
housing investments?

A.2. Response not received in time for publication.
              Additional Material Supplied for the Record
            STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY THE BUILDSTRONG COALITION

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

  STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY RYAN M. COLKER, VICE PRESIDENT, INNOVATION, 
   INTERNATIONAL CODE COUNCIL, AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALLIANCE FOR 
                   NATIONAL AND COMMUNITY RESILIENCE

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]