Obama to push energy-efficient buildings

Goal is making buildings 20% more energy efficient by 2020

Feb. 3, 2011 - President Barack Obama will unveil a new plan Thursday to make commercial buildings more energy efficient, part of a clean-energy push he made in his State of the Union address last week.

Obama will announce the plan during a visit to Penn State University, where he will be touring labs focused on energy-efficient buildings.

The plan, which consists of new tax breaks for building upgrades and increased access to financing for commercial-building retrofits, among other things, will be part of Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal 2012. Obama is due to submit his new budget to Congress on Feb. 14.

In his State of the Union address, Obama called for major investments in clean energy and set a goal of 80% of U.S. electricity to come from renewable sources by 2035. {continued}