42 U.S.C. § 17085 — Tenant Star program

(a) Definitions: This section reuses the definitions of "high-performance energy efficiency measure" and "separate spaces" from section 17084. (b) Tenant Star: The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, working with the Secretary of Energy, must build a voluntary program inside the existing Energy Star program. It may be called "Tenant Star." Its goal is to promote energy efficiency in the separate spaces that tenants lease or occupy inside commercial buildings. (c) Expanding survey data: The Secretary of Energy, through the Energy Information Administration, must collect more useful data. Starting with each Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey conducted after April 30, 2015, the Administration must gather data on building occupancy types known to use a lot of energy, such as data centers, trading floors, and restaurants, plus any other property or occupancy details that the EIA Administrator and the EPA Administrator agree would help lower energy use. If full compliance is not possible for the very first survey after that date, the Administration must instead start building the capacity to collect this data and begin gathering what it can. All the data collected must be made public in aggregated form, and it must also be given to the EPA Administrator to use for the recognition programs in subsection (d). (d) Recognition of owners and tenants: Once enough data comes in under subsection (c), the EPA Administrator has one year to act, after giving the public a chance to comment. The Administrator must build a rating and recognition system for tenants, similar to the Energy Star system for whole buildings, that rewards tenants who voluntarily reach high energy efficiency in their separate spaces. The Administrator must also set up building-occupancy categories that qualify for Tenant Star recognition, based on the new survey data and other sources, and must consider other ways to recognize tenants or occupants who lower their energy use. Separately, after the design-and-construction study required by section 17084(b) is finished, the EPA Administrator, working with the Secretary and after public notice and comment, may (but does not have to) create a voluntary program to recognize building owners and tenants who use high-performance measures when they design and build separate spaces.