Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)After kicking around congress for a few years, the SupplySTAR program finally seems to have gained some traction as part of the 2013 Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act recently re-introduced by Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Rob Portman (R-OH). With some tweeks from 2011, the bill now has buy-in from over 200 groups as diverse as the National Association of Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce, Dow Chemical and the Sierra Club, and seems likely to pass. According to Forbes, many companies manufacturing green products have seen their stock rise in the days after the announcement of the bill, including Phillips and Owens Corning.
The bill strengthens building codes, and provides incentives for businesses and consumers, alike, to invest in renewable energy. The bill also introduces the SupplySTAR Program as an effort to help manufacturers reduce energy costs. With this program, the DOE would work with industry and small business to improve supply chain efficiency through sharing best practices, providing benchmarking opportunities and supporting professional training. This would be an important step and would help businesses who cannot afford to hire experts to evaluate reducing their energy costs.
SupplySTAR coordinates with EnergySTAR and would:
- identify and promote practices, companies and products that conserve energy, water and other resources through highly efficient supply chains.
- require that the DOE consider the entire life cycle of a product when evaluating its supply chain efficiency, including its production, transport, packaging, use and disposal.
- permit the DOE to distribute funds to entities for: the study of supply chain energy resource efficiency; demonstrating reductions in the energy resource consumption of products through improvements in supply chain efficiency.
- collect and disseminate data on supply chain energy resource consumption, develop and disseminate metrics for evaluating supply chain energy resource use, and develop sector level guidance for improving supply chain efficiency.
Read the bill itself- scroll to section 3 to read about the industrial and manufacturing implications
Read More about the business angle at Forbes
Do you support his legislation? If so write to Robert_diznoff@shaheen.senate.gov