ICAST Awarded $2M HUD Healthy Homes Grant
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently awarded ICAST a $2M Healthy Homes Production Grant to retrofit at least 200 low-income (LI) multifamily homes in New Mexico. ICAST will collaborate with local partners to identify properties with significant home environmental hazards (e.g., radon, mold) and deliver healthy homes and energy efficiency upgrades to protect LI residents’ health and safety and improve the functioning of their homes.
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Green Mountain Power (GMP), Vermont’s largest utility, plans to create new microgrids and community resilience zones as part of a plan to “radically transform” the grid that is outlined in the utility’s new integrated resource plan (IRP). In the latest plan, the utility said it wants to transform the grid into a two- way sharing system, generate more renewable power close to where it will be used, and foster electric vehicles.
ICAST Policy Blog
The Future of The Build Back Better Bill
The Build Back Better (BBB) bill may be dead in the water in its original form. President Biden said in a White House Press conference that the authors will “have to probably break it up,” and that he has “been talking to [his] colleagues on the Hill; it’s clear that [the authors] would be able to get support for the 500-plus billion dollars for energy and the environment.” However, Senator Manchin, a key Democrat who opposed the passing of the BBB bill, told reporters shortly after the President’s speech that he had not yet been approached to discuss breaking out pieces of the BBB agenda.
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Electrifying apartment buildings is tough. A new heat pump design could make it easier.
In the late 1990s, the New York City public housing authority, NYCHA, challenged manufacturers to design a new energy-efficient refrigerator. While suburban homeowners had their pick of energy-saving fridges, no one was selling an efficient model that was small enough for a typical urban apartment. A 1995 New York Times article referred to the refrigerators NYCHA was using at the time as “the kitchen equivalent of gas guzzlers.”
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