Report From Parliament Hill

By Prince George - Peace River M.P. Jay Hill

What is ecoENERGY?

As the Environment, climate change, global warming, energy and pollution have moved to the forefront of public debate in Canada, it has become increasingly difficult for Canadians to make sense of the flood of facts and information.  

No, I am not about to attempt to 'sort it all out' - certainly not in this limited space.  However, I can help to inform my constituents on some environmental news that you may have missed.  For example, the ecoEnergy Initiative, which was launched by Environment Minister John Baird and Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn in late January.  It consists of three parts:  ecoEnergy Renewable, ecoEnergy Efficiency and ecoEnergy Technology.

The ecoEnergy Renewable initiative invests $1.5-billion towards making clean Renewable Power more readily available and affordable to you.  It provides a production incentive of one cent per kilowatt-hour for renewable energy, such as wind, biomass, small-scale hydro, solar and tidal power. 

Another $36-million will be invested in Renewable Heat.  Purchasers of solar heating systems in the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors will be offered incentives, and pilot projects will explore the use of residential solar hot water systems. 

The ecoEnergy Efficiency initiative encourages Canadians to conserve energy in every part of their lives.  This includes incentives for homeowners and smaller businesses and organizations to invest in energy-saving retrofits.  

The $220-million ecoEnergy Retrofit is NOT simply a resurrection of the former government's EnerGuide program.  That program helped fund energy audits which tell homeowners how they can make their homes more energy efficient.  Disappointingly however, 70 percent of those government-subsidized energy audits were never acted upon, meaning those
tax dollars did absolutely nothing to reduce energy consumption and help our Environment.

The Conservative Government's ecoEnergy Retrofit program puts federal resources where they count.  Homeowners will pay for their energy audits but the government will support their actual retrofit investments, such as new insulation and heating equipment.  The average grant is expected to be more than $1,000, significantly higher than the EnerGuide's $750
grant. 

Finally, the ecoEnergy Techonology Initiative is a $230-million investment into the research and development of clean-energy
technologies.  Canada needs to urgently develop energy for the future ... clean energy production that doesn't pollute the air we breathe. Some examples include bio-energy, hydrogen fuel, clean coal and carbon dioxide sequestration and storage. 

EcoEnergy goes hand-in-hand with our government's other environmental policies, including the Clean Air Act.  Within four years, aggressive energy-use regulations will take effect on equipment such as appliances, electronics, lighting and motors.

We've also created tax incentives to boost the use of public transit; reduced the use of mercury in vehicles; increased the renewable fuel content in gasoline to 5 percent by 2010; banned chemicals harmful to wildlife and people through our Chemicals Management Plan; reduced base metal smelter emissions; and, we set new emissions limits for motorcycles, scooters and mopeds.

In just one year, the Conservative Government has taken more real, tangible, results-producing action on the Environment than this country has seen in well over a decade.  If you want to learn more, go to Environment Canada's website at:  www.ec.gc.ca <http://www.ec.gc.ca/> or the Natural Resources Canada website at:  www.nrcan.gc.ca
<http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/> .

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