Today the governor signed into law Senate Bill 5854, which I sponsored to help save money by making buildings more energy efficient.

This marks a real opportunity to do two critical things — save money and grow our economy. Energy efficiency is one of the few bright spots in these tough economic times,and this new law will help lower utility bills for consumers across the state while putting people to work using skills they already have.

The policies in this bill emerged as top priorities from the Energy Efficiency & Green Building Implementation Working Group of the Governor’s Climate Action Team, and were vetted by a broad range of stakeholders during that process.

SB 5854 includes provisions to gradually strengthen state building codes and offer incentives and planning to achieve more efficient, lower-energy-use buildings by 2030; get information about buildings’ energy-use performance and make have those results available to potential buyers, lessees or lenders; and make public buildings models of energy efficiency.