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Weatherization Plus Background

Discussions about strategic planning for the evolution of the Weatherization Assistance Program first began in the fall of 1998, at the Weatherization State Program Managers' Meeting in Brooklyn, New York. As an outcome of the Brooklyn discussions, a planning group, called the Weatherization Millennium Committee, was formed. The committee included state, local and federal staff, in addition to representatives from the National Association for State Community Services Programs (NASCSP) and the National Community Action Foundation (NCAF).

The Millennium Committee developed a visionary report containing a strategy for strengthening and expanding the Weatherization Assistance Program for the future. Named "Weatherization Plus : Opportunities for the 21st Century," this strategic plan urged the Department to support the network of state and local Weatherization agencies in flexibly adopting a whole-house approach and a whole-community approach to better serve low-income Americans.

The goal of Weatherization Plus is to enable the Weatherization Assistance Program to achieve significantly greater energy cost savings for more low-income households and to increase the Program's contribution to the economic and environmental health and sustainability of our nation's communities.

When the original Weatherization Millennium Committee's work was completed, a follow-on group, called the Millennium Implementation Planning Committee (nicknamed the "MIC") took the vision of the first Committee and transferred it into an implementation plan. The MIC expanded upon the membership of the original Committee to include representation of the interests of Native American tribes, training centers and other stakeholders. With input from the entire network, the MIC formulated a series of action steps to lay the groundwork for Weatherization Plus . Actions were defined in the context of the three main strategies that the original committee established. They are:

Increase the network's flexibility through legislative/regulatory program improvements, and facilitating the role of Weatherization agencies in interactions with other community-based initiatives.
Advance the network's technological capabilities through an integrated strategy of training and technical assistance to employ new and advanced technologies which have been determined to be cost-effective, but have not been readily available to the Weatherization network in the past.
Expand resources available to the network through exchange of information on successes and new opportunities, interagency partnerships, appropriations at state and federal levels, and other leveraged funds from multiple sources.

In May of 2000, an update on Weatherization Plus was provided via a report entitled: "Progress Report on Weatherization Plus : Steps to New Opportunities in the 21st Century." It reported on the status of the 18 specific actions that the MIC defined to lay the groundwork for success assuming eventual broader network implementation when the necessary resources become available. Another update was issued in June 2001, entitled, "Weatherization Plus Progress Report: Poised to Move Forward."

In October of 2000, statutory changes were made to the Program to restructure the method of which states compute their average cost per home; eliminate the separate per dwelling capital intensive improvements category; increase the average cost per home to $2,500; and, eliminate the requirement that 40% of funds used to weatherize a home be spent for materials.
On December 8, 2000, the Weatherization Program regulations were amended to, among other things, add high-energy burden and high-energy user categories for priority service; to create a separate category for health and safety expenditures and vehicle purchases; and, to revise the date for reweatherization from 1985 to 1993.

DOE has commissioned Economic Opportunity Studies to perform a number of tasks in support of an expanded role for subgrantees in the area of community-based interactions that goes beyond weatherizing individual buildings. Recently undertaken, the study will: develop a report on 2-4 case studies of subgrantees' successful work going beyond traditional weatherization services in their communities; identify other federal programs whose resources could be used by Weatherization subgrantees to expand work in their service areas; report on other federal programs funded for 2001 which may be appropriate sources of coordinated community/weatherization/sustainable development resources; and provide a catalogue of case studies.