WASHINGTON – Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) pushed the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for details on the government's Energy Star Small Business Program, including the specific steps the Bush Administration has taken to assist small businesses address the climate change crisis. In a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, Kerry and Snowe called for more resources to be directed to the program in light of estimates that small businesses use approximately half of all the commercial energy in the United States. An EPA official testified before the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship last month that current resources for this program amount to just two percent of the overall Energy Star budget, and include the equivalent of just two staff members.
To read the letter to the EPA, please click here.