H.R. 6212 — Introduced in House

I 114th CONGRESS 2d Session H. R. 6212 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES September 28, 2016Mr. Cartwright (for himself, Mr. Quigley, Mr. Tonko, Ms. Matsui, and Mr. Connolly) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce A BILL To authorize the Department of Energy to assess and score new and existing homes for the cost-effective reduction in the energy use, and for other purposes. 1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Scoring Calculations for Our Residential Energy Act of 2016 or the SCORE Act of 2016. 2. Department of Energy Home Energy Score Program (a) In general The Secretary of Energy shall maintain a Home Energy Score Program to provide to homeowners and borrowers, on a voluntary basis at the request of the homeowner or borrower, a score document for the purpose of enabling the cost-effective reduction in the energy use of those homes. Score documents shall be available under the Program for both new and existing homes. A score document shall grade the home on its energy consumption for heating, cooling, water heating, and other variables the Secretary considers appropriate to enable achieving cost-effective reduction in the energy use of the home, so that it may be easily compared to other homes. The Program may include the alternate use of any comparable residential rating system, as approved by the Secretary of Energy through published guidelines. (b) Assessments The Program shall provide for home assessments, conducted pursuant to a request by a homeowner or borrower in accordance with section 2(a), by assessors who hold a relevant qualifying credential approved by the Secretary of Energy, to collect energy use information during an approved walk-through of the home for the purpose of creating a score document for the home. (c) Score document A score document under the Program shall include— (1) energy use information collected during an assessment described in subsection (b) for a home, differentiated by specific energy uses and provided on a relative scale based on benchmarks set within the Program; and (2) cost-effective recommendations of means to improve the score and energy efficiency of the home. 3. Definitions In this Act: (1) Home The term home means any permanent legal residence with a roof and walls which is not a mobile home, manufactured home, houseboat, camper van, recreational vehicle, apartment, hospital, assisted living facility, or office building. (2) Manufactured home The term manufactured home has the meaning given such term in section 603 of the National Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974 (42 U.S.C. 5402). (3) Program The term Program means the Home Energy Score Program maintained by the Department of Energy under section 2. (4) Score document The term score document means a document described in section 2(c).