By Stacey Paradis, MEEA Executive Director

The presidential “Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth” executive order signed on Tuesday was positioned as a way for the federal government to not be forced to choose between environmental protection and economic development. On Sunday, U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt prefaced the order’s release, saying the order and the policies it promotes would be “pro-jobs and pro-environment.”

Each year, U.S. businesses and consumers spend $450 billion on powering our buildings, with up to 30 percent of that energy and money wasted on inefficiency. In some cities, the poorest performing buildings can consume up to seven times the energy of the highest performing buildings for the exact same use. As a result, improving building energy use should be top of mind for businesses and real estate pros across the country. In many cases, however, it is shocking how little is known about these structures. The U.S.

The Business Council for Sustainable Energy and Bloomberg New Energy Finance recently released its 2017 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook. The data told a compelling story: energy businesses are thriving and growing faster than what many imagined. It also said renewable energy, energy efficiency, and natural gas are - together - dominating today's energy economy.

Across the world, myriad efforts are underway to make energy systems cleaner, smarter, and more efficient. But it’s hard to get a sense of the total size of those efforts, as they are spread across so many different industries and regions. One organization that has given this quite a bit of thought is Advanced Energy Economy(AEE), a national trade association of businesses working on cleaner and smarter energy.

Read on at Vox

New amendments to St. Louis County building codes, sought by the local construction industry, would weaken existing guidelines for energy efficiency and represent a step backward for homeowners, critics say.

Read on at St. Louis Post-Dispatch

While the political landscape in Midwest states shows a growing reluctance to mandate utility spending on energy efficiency, some states are still gaining ground in reducing energy use by approaching it from different sectors.