Clinton to Push Plan to Reduce Energy Usage

Stymied by congressional obstacles to a global warming treaty and companion proposals for massive reductions in U.S. energy consumption, President Clinton today will launch a campaign for a more contained effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions by increasing home energy efficiency, White House sources say.

Using a Los Angeles building site as a backdrop, Clinton will unveil a government partnership with the construction industry to cut energy use by 50% in homes built over the next 10 years, White House officials said Sunday. The program also aims to cut energy use by 30% in 15 million existing houses, approximately 20% of the nation’s homes.

The details of the program have been tightly held and caught environmentalists by surprise.

But Dan Lashoff, the climate-change expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said: “This addresses only one piece of the problem, but it’s an important piece. We have to make progress of this kind on many fronts at once.

“It is this kind of innovation that is the best way to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. It sounds like a very positive step forward,” he said.

The housing effort represents something of an end run around a Congress that so far has balked at supporting the massive $6.3-billion package of energy-saving measures submitted as part of Clinton’s budget package. Many in the Republican-controlled Congress see the energy-saving program as a backdoor way of moving the United States down the road prescribed by the international climate-change agreement reached in December in Kyoto, Japan.

The administration has decided not to submit the pact to the Senate at this time, fearing it would be rejected.

Although they’re not abandoning the larger blueprint, administration officials say that by focusing on about $100 million in proposals to boost energy efficiency in houses, Clinton can enlist support from the politically potent home construction industry and thus ease congressional resistance.

The president’s proposals are designed to overcome the often-lengthy delays in bringing new technologies to the marketplace. Aides hope giving the more modest proposals the president’s personal stamp of approval in a high-profile setting will substantially improve their chances.

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At its center, the program Clinton is scheduled to highlight today links government agencies and private industry to research potential energy-saving technologies--among them heating and cooling systems, windows offering insulation nearly as tight as walls, and roof shingles that capture solar power--and hasten their introduction in new homes. A similar partnership is working to develop automobiles with dramatic increases in fuel efficiency.

“This is a stretch goal,” said a senior administration official. But he also expressed optimism that the goal could be met.

Although appropriations, many of them for increases in existing programs, would require congressional approval, administration officials said they would be able to immediately establish the energy-saving goals and begin the collaborative work with private companies.

Among the 65 private companies, government agencies and other institutions that plan to participate are Dow Chemical Corp., the Pulte Co., Southern California Edison and the National Assn. of Homebuilders.

Home energy use is believed to contribute about 20% of total U.S. carbon emissions. The administration estimates that its efficiency program, the Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing, could reduce energy costs by $11 billion annually by 2010 and cut carbon emissions by nearly 24 million tons. That would equal the emissions of 20 million cars, but only a small share of the total emissions of just a few major electric utilities.

The specific impact of global warming, and the extent to which it is occurring, if at all, remains under debate. But many mainstream scientists agree that burning fossil fuels--coal, oil, and their byproducts--is sending an invisible blanket of carbon into the atmosphere, where it traps solar heat.

Scientists have estimated that unless this process is reversed, the average temperature at Earth’s surface will increase 2 to 6 degrees over the next century, bringing with it the risk of elevated sea levels, wider spread of tropical diseases and drastic shifts in weather patterns.

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Under the Kyoto pact, which is unlikely to be submitted for Senate approval for at least two years, the United States would be required by 2012 to reduce its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to 7% below 1990 levels.

The treaty’s political future in the United States is at best unsettled and, with new climate talks scheduled in Bonn in June and in Buenos Aires in November, it could yet be revised before it reaches the Senate.

Janet L. Yellin, who chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisors, told Congress in March that the Kyoto agreement would raise average American energy bills by $70 to $100 a year over the next 15 years. But William F. O’Keefe, executive vice president of the American Petroleum Institute, has cited a prediction by the private economic forecasting firm, WEFA Inc., which has done work for opponents of the climate treaty, that the Kyoto pact could raise the average household energy bill by $2,000 annually.

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But in the Village Green construction site adjacent to the Sylmar Metrolink train station, where work is about to begin on 186 homes that White House aides said are expected to sell for $140,000 to $160,000, the sort of energy efficiency Clinton has in mind would bring average energy costs down from $570 a year to $340, they said.

In addition, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is expected to help pay for energy-efficient refrigerators, washing machines and other appliances, the White House said.

Similar projects are planned in Tucson, Pittsburgh and Denver.

Today’s expected announcement is the single nonpolitical event Clinton planned during his brief visit to Southern California.

Sunday night he attended a fund-raiser at the Westwood Marquis for Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), which drew more than 100 supporters. The reception was expected to bring in more than $150,000 for her reelection fight gainst former Rep. Robert K. Dornan.

Afterward, Clinton attended a dinner at the Brentwood home of Eli Broad, chairman and CEO of SunAmerica Inc., which was expected to net $1 million for Democratic congressional candidates.

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Times staff writer Tini Tran in Los Angeles contributed to this story.