QUICK ACTION PLAYBOOK
Advocate for home energy
rebates in your state
Let’s take action.
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Urge your state legislator to help ensure your state applies early for federal funding that would offset the cost of home energy upgrades for low- and moderate-income households.
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Find contact info
Send an email
Share on LinkedIn
🔎 Step 1: Find your state legislators’ email addresses
Every American is represented by at least one elected official in their state’s legislative branch. For this action, you’ll need to find email addresses for your state legislators.
Start by clicking here and entering your home address.
Choose “State Officials” and expand the results for your state senator(s) and state assemblymember (also called representative or delegate, titles vary by state); contact information is nested under each elected official’s name.
👏 Step 2: Write personalized emails to your state legislators
It’s important to personalize your emails to lawmakers. Not only are personalized emails more attention-grabbing, they are processed individually rather than being batched with other identical letters as a single correspondence.
Open a blank email, then copy/paste and edit the template below. After you personalize it, you can use the same email copy for each legislator but send them as separate emails. Please bcc advocacy@climatechangemakers.org on every message so we can make note of our impact.
Make sure to customize the sections in brackets and carry over any links (they’re an important part of your message).
Copy/paste the template below ⬇️
or click here to populate a new email
Please bcc advocacy@climatechangemakers.org so we can track our impact.
SUBJECT: Please advocate for a home energy rebate program
Dear [STATE LEGISLATOR],
I hope this letter finds you well. My name is [NAME], your constituent in [CITY/TOWN], and I'm reaching out to discuss the U.S. Department of Energy's $8.8 billion home electrification and energy efficiency rebates. DOE will allocate these funds to states in the form of grants that states can then distribute to consumers. But in order to take advantage of this opportunity, states have to apply. The initiative is a significant opportunity for our state, especially for our low- and moderate-income households.
By participating, our state can make essential electricity and energy efficiency upgrades more affordable, leading to a healthier, zero-carbon future. DOE will award grants on a rolling basis, so the sooner we can apply, the sooner our communities can start seeing real benefits.
The benefits of this program are vast, from reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving public health to offering significant savings on consumers’ yearly energy bills with the right efficiency upgrades. The Inflation Reduction Act's home energy rebate programs showcase the federal government's commitment to including low-income households in the energy transition, but their success depends on states like ours actively participating. As your constituent, this is important to me because [WHY DO YOU CARE?]
I urge you to help me advocate to our state energy office for a timely application to this program. Your leadership can make a profound difference for many households in our state.
Thank you for your dedication to our community. I look forward to seeing our state take a step toward a clean energy future. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you’d like to discuss further.
Sincerely,
Ready to send? Make sure your email is customized, hyperlinks are included, and advocacy@climatechangemakers.org is in bcc, then hit send.
💬 Step 3: Invite others to take action (don’t skip this!)
Network effects are powerful. Talking about climate solutions and encouraging friends, family, or followers to take climate action is a crucial step toward changing cultural norms and making real progress. Now that you’ve taken this action, invite your friends to do the same.
📲 Easy option: simply share this LinkedIn post!
⚡ Level up! Draft your own post on the social network of your choosing, or even better yet, reach out to friends and colleagues individually via email or text.
Borrow from the Issue Briefing for the facts, but the most important thing is to communicate why you care (share your “climate why”!), and by extension, why your audience might care. End your post with a concrete call to action. Then send it!
And that’s it, playbook complete! Feel accomplished.
Thank you for taking action.
🎉 CUE CONFETTI 🎉
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The federal government is making $8.8 billion available in home electrification and energy efficiency rebates through the Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark climate law. We want state governments to help offset the costs of consumer energy upgrades by applying for the U.S. Department of Energy’s home energy rebate grants before August 16, 2024.
The government is offering an unprecedented level of assistance to homeowners for making cost-saving, zero-carbon, safer upgrades to their home energy systems and appliances. Cost savings will be concentrated among low- and moderate-income households (< 150% the area’s median household income). In many cases, rebates will be applied directly at the point of sale (including for installation), so eligible households will never have to front the cost of electrification upgrades. There’s also a $500-per-project rebate for contractors who take on electrification installation work.
The rebates will be distributed to consumers through state-run programs, not directly by the Department of Energy, which means state governments must submit competitive applications for their share of the rebate funds by the deadline. As constituents, we can nudge them toward submitting a timely, ambitious application and demonstrate to them that we’re engaged on this issue.
Why is it so important to electrify residential buildings and make them more energy-efficient?
💡 Residential buildings account for more than 10% of annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
♥️ Residential appliances that burn fossil fuels, such as gas stoves, create harmful indoor air pollution and are significant contributors to childhood asthma. Meanwhile, outdoor air pollution from residential buildings accounts for over 15,000 premature deaths every year.
✊ Low- and moderate-income (LMI) households bear 3x the energy burden as higher income households, while communities of color are disproportionately impacted by poor indoor air quality.
💰 Electrifying residential buildings across the U.S. would save an average of almost $500 in energy costs per year, per household.
💼 Nationwide home electrification could catalyze the creation of over a million jobs in installation, manufacturing, and further down the supply chain.
You’re ready to take action! Jump back to the top.
Want an even deeper dive? Check out our Home Energy Rebates Issue Briefing.
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