Last week, the President visited manufacturers in Wisconsin who are focused on creating the clean energy products of the future. Today, he continues taking his agenda for innovation and a new energy economy on the road, visiting an Energy Innovation Hub in State College, Pennsylvania.
While visiting the researchers and developers at this facility, the President will announce his Better Building Initiative. This initiative aims to achieve a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency in commercial buildings by 2020, improvements which will save American businesses $40 billion a year. Those savings will free up critical funds that businesses can use to expand, reach new markets, and create more American jobs.
One of the key parts of the Better Building Initiative is a program called Race to Green, a competitive grant process modeled after the highly successful Race to the Top program that has improved education across the country. Race to Green will encourage states and local governments to reform their building codes and make it easier to retrofit buildings with energy-saving technology. The best ideas to streamline regulations will receive grants from the federal government that will help them put those ideas into practice.
The biggest, most world-changing innovations in this country's history have come from the private sector, and President Obama knows that that's where we'll find the next ones, too. Winning the future is going to require government and business to work together and foster the good ideas that become great inventions.
