BOMA Fights to Save EPA’s ENERGY STAR Program

The Fiscal Year 2018 budget recently proposed by President Trump includes dramatic cuts for the Environmental Protection Agency. Most notable for the real estate industry is the demise of the ENERGY STAR program.

The elimination of ENERGY STAR, which includes the popular Portfolio Manager tool, has received considerable attention from the media, and campaigns in support for the program have started. BOMA International along with The Real Estate Roundtable and a coalition of real estate interests, has already begun to engage federal lawmakers to educate them on the importance of ENERGY STAR to the commercial real estate industry.

BOMA has met with senior staffers on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and will continue to make the case for ENERGY STAR as the appropriations process moves forward.

To that end, a real estate coalition letter was sent to House and Senate Leadership to go on record supporting ENERGY STAR. Additionally, the coalition worked with several lawmakers in the House to include an official appropriations request for ENERGY STAR.

As the budget process unfolds, we will keep you up-to-date on our progress and engage our membership directly when appropriate. This will be a long fight, probably through October, and we plan to vigorously defend the merits of the ENERGY STAR program as Congress moves forward with a new budget.

BOMA will continue to engage Congress and the Administration on this specific issue both as part of a coalition effort and individually.