26/03/2009 at 09:30AM
Restoring America’s Manufacturing Leadership through Energy Efficiency Act of 2009
The United States faces long-term energy, climate, and competitiveness challenges that go far beyond the economic hurdles that we are facing today. Our global competitors are gaining in productivity and capturing high-value manufacturing capabilities and products that were invented in the U.S. With the convergence of these challenges, we have reached a turning point in our industrial history – to use these challenges as an opportunity for the renewal and transformation of U.S. industry and manufacturing to compete globally through sheer technical prowess and product value superiority, reducing our dependence on carbon-based fuels, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and increasing productivity. This legislation takes the first steps in achieving this transformation by focusing on providing financing mechanisms for manufacturers to implement cost-competitive, energy efficient equipment and processes, as well as by establishing public/private partnerships with industry to map out where advanced American manufacturing is headed and to develop and deploy the breakthrough processes and technologies that will take us there.
1. Provides financing mechanisms for industry to retool and implement advanced technology, reducing energy intensity and emissions, while increasing competitiveness.
- Establishes DOE grants to community lender/state partnerships to establish regional revolving loan programs for manufacturers.
- Links DOE’s energy assessments to SBA Loans
2. Revives and strengthens our industrial competitiveness through public-private partnerships to develop and deploy the new technologies and processes needed to be globally competitive in a carbon and energy constrained world.
- Establishes partnerships between the Industrial Technologies Program (ITP) and other Federal applied technology programs to engage in early stage manufacturing technology development.
- Directs DOE to benchmark our domestic industry by assessing the cost, energy and ghg emissions savings potential of commercially available, but not widely implemented industrial technologies.
- Develops with industry, technology roadmaps to map out how to achieve decreased energy intensity and emissions, while increasing competitiveness.
- Expands the regionally based Industrial Assessment Centers to reach more small and medium-sized manufacturers and train the industrial engineers of tomorrow.
- Establishes Industrial Innovation Grants to encourage and reward innovation in industrial processes and technologies.
3. Realizing and Capturing the Future of Manufacturing in the United States.
- Establishes a joint industry-government manufacturing partnerships to shift our industry towards utilizing advanced, sustainable manufacturing technologies and processes to compete in a low-carbon global economy.
- Directs the National Academies of Science to evaluate the critical manufacturing capabilities and supply chain components needed to capture the development and production of advanced energy technologies in the U.S.