Email: "Congressional Bill HR 2454 - Selling Your Home"

Fw: Congressional Bill  HR 2454 Selling Your Home

[note - all mistakes below are original to the text]

From: XXXXXXXX@gmail.com
To: XXXXXXX@hotmail.com
Sent: Monday, September 09, 2009 9:46 PM
Subject: Fw: Congressional Bill HR 2454 - Selling your home

This bill is only 1428 pages long... The House passed it without reading and it is in the Senate now.

Here is the link for the bill  http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h2454pcs.txt.pdf

Wow!  home owners take note & tell your friends and relatives who are home owners!!! Beginning 1 year after enactment of the Act, you won't be able to sell your home unless you retrofit it to comply with the energy and water efficiency standards of this Act.

YOUR SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT AT WORK...............

More change you can believe in.....The Cap and Trade bill passed in the House and now is in the Senate. A lot has been said about the enormous tax hit and energy price hikes to every tax payer that will follow this bill, but not much has been leaked about the impact on your ability to sell and maintain your home.   Hah, gotcha.  Read on.....

H.R. 2454, the "Cap & Trade" bill passed last week by the House of Representatives, if also passed by the Senate, will be the largest tax increase any of us has ever experienced. The Congressional Budget Office (supposedly non-partisan) estimates that in just a few years the average cost to every family of four will be $6,800 per year. No one is excluded. However, once the lower classes feel the pinch in their wallets, you can be sure these voters get a tax refund (even if they pay no taxes at all) to offset th is new cost. Thus, you Mr. and Mrs. Middle Class America will have to pay even more since additional tax dollars will be needed to bail out everyone else.

But wait. This awful bill (that no one in Congress has actually read) has many more surprises in it.

Probably the worst one is this:  A year from now you won't be able to sell your house.

Yes, you read that right. The caveat is (there always is a caveat) that if you have enough money to make required major upgrades to your home, then you can sell it. But, if not, then forget it. Even pre-fabricated homes (mobile homes) are included.

In effect, this bill prevents you from selling your home without the permission of the EPA administrator (Czar).

To get this permission, you will have to have the energy efficiency of your home measured. Then the government will tell you what your new energy efficiency requirement is and you will be forced to make modifications to your home under the retrofit provisions of this Act to comply with the new energy and water efficiency requirements. Then you will have to get your home measured again and get a license (called a "label" in the Act) that must be posted on your property to show what your efficiency rating is; sort of like the Energy Star efficiency rating label on your refrigerator or air conditioner. If you don't get a high enough rating, you can't sell. And, the EPA administrator is authorized to raise the standards every year, even above the automatic energy efficiency increases built into the Act.

The EPA Czar, appointed by the President, will run the Cap & Trade program (AKA the "American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009") and is authorized to make any future changes to the regulations and standards he alone determines to be in the government's best interest. Requirements are set low initially so the bill will pass Congress; then the Administrator can set much tougher new standards every year. The Act itself contains annual required increases in energy efficiency for private and commercial residences and buildings. However, the EPA administrator can set higher standards at any time.

Sect. 202 Building Retrofit Program mandates a national retrofit program to increase the energy efficiency of all existing homes across America . Beginning 1 year after enactment of the Act, you won't be able to sell your home unless you retrofit it to comply with the energy and water efficiency standards of this Act. You had better sell soon, because the standards will be raised each year and will be really hard (i.e., ex$pen$ive) to meet in a few years. Oh, goody! The Act allows the government to give you a grant of several thousand dollars to comply with the retrofit program requirements if you meet certain energy efficiency levels. But, wait, the State can set additional requirements on who qualifies to receive the grants. You should expect requirements such as "can't have an income of more than $50K per year", "home selling price can't be more than $125K", or anything else to target the upper middle class (and that's YOU) and prevent them from qualifying for the grants. Most of us won't get a dime and will have to pay the entire cost of the retrofit out of our own pockets. More transfer of wealth, more "change you can believe in."

Sect. 204 Building Energy Performance Labeling Program establishes a labeling program that for each individual residence will identify the achieved energy efficiency performance for "at least 90 percent of the residential market within 5 years after the date of the enactment of this Act." This means that within 5 years 90% of all residential homes in the U.S. must be measured and labeled. The EPA administrator will get $50M each year to enforce the labeling program. The Secretary of the Department of Energy will get an additional $20M each year to help enforce the labeling program. Some of this money will, of course, be spent on coming up with tougher standards each year. Oh, the label will be like a license for your car. You will be required to post the label in a conspicuous location in your home and will not be allowed to sell your home without having this label. And, just like your car license, you will probably be required to get a new label periodically - maybe every year. But, the government estimates the cost of measuring the energy efficiency of your home should only cost about $200 each time. Remember what they said about the auto smog inspections when they first started:  that in California it would only cost $15. That was when the program started. Now the cost is about $50 for the inspection and certificate; a 333% increase. Expect the same from the home labeling program.

Sect. 304 Greater Energy Efficiency in Building Codes establishes new energy efficiency guidelines for the National Building Code and mandates at 304(d) that 1 year after enactment of this Act, all state and local jurisdictions must adopt the National Building Code energy efficiency provisions or must obtain a certification from the federal government that their state and/or local codes have been brought into full compliance with the National Building Code energy efficiency standards.

ARE YOU SURE YOU VOTED CORRECTLY LAST ELECTION????

REMEMBER TO VOTE IN THE NEXT ELECTION WHICH IS 15 MONTHS AWAY!!!!

ARE YOU FEELING THE SQUEEZE YET?????

Response

Hey, thanks for sending that my way.

In today's struggling economy, I wouldn't want a bill that costs that much or prevents people from selling homes - it just wouldn't make sense!

Some of the stuff in that email seemed a little far-fetched to me, so I decided to do some research on my own to sort out the falsehoods.

The email claims the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said the bill would cost a family of four $6,800 a year!  That would be ridiculous.  Luckily, it's a lie.

I found a letter that the CBO wrote to a Republican congressman that said the bill would only cost an average family $175 dollars a year, which equals the cost of a postage stamp a day! Wow. You can read the letter yourself: http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090620/cbowaxmanmarkey.pdf

The email also claims that the EPA Administrator is a "czar." That's not true at all.  The head of the EPA is a member of the president's cabinet that must be confirmed by the Senate.  President Obama's choice for EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, was confirmed unanimously back in January.

As for the emails claim that the bill would make it illegal to sell your home without an energy audit and an upgrade in energy efficiency, that is also a lie. 

I found a great website called FactCheck.org that examines the claims made by both Republicans AND Democrats.  It tells it like it is.  You can read it here if you want to: http://www.factcheck.org/2009/07/energy-bill-and-existing-homes/

FactCheck.org says that the bill only sets requirements for buildings built after the bill becomes law.  If you currently own a home, nothing would change for you.  The National Association of Home Builders told the website, "if you are talking specifically about energy-efficiency checks, or an energy audit, it is not required for existing home."

The National Association of Realtors, the experts on selling homes, said "No, section 202 does not require that buildings be retrofitted. Rather, it provides federal funding for states to offer financial incentives, such as loans or grants, for property owners to voluntarily decide to improve energy efficiency... Nowhere does this bill create a federal requirement that a property owner would have to retrofit a property to any guideline at any time."

So there you have it.  Everything in this email is a blatant lie.  In reality, the American Clean Energy and Security Act would create 1.7 million American jobs and help the country become more energy independent - all for the price of a postage stamp per day.

There are a lot of crazy emails that go around the internet, but it's important to figure out the facts.

See you soon.