President Obama, accompanied by Secretary Chu in a visit to Penn State University, tours an Energy Innovation Hub, discusses innovation, and announces the “Better Buildings Initiative” to make U.S. businesses more efficient as part of his plan to ensure that America wins the future by out-innovating, out-educating, and out-building the competition. The initiative aims to achieve a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency by 2020, reduce companies’ and business owners’ energy bills by about $40 billion per year, and save energy by reforming outdated incentives and challenging the private sector to act. The plan will spur innovation by reforming tax and other incentives to retrofit, creating a new competitive grant program for states and localities that streamline their regulations to attract retrofit investment, and asking the private sector to invest in building upgrades through a new “Better Buildings Challenge.” The President has asked President Clinton, who has been a champion for this kind of energy innovation, to co-lead the private sector engagement along with the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, headed by Jeff Immelt, the CEO of General Electric.

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