Washington (Platts)--14Apr2010/636 pm EDT/2236 GMT

A bill that would encourage homeowners to pour money into energy efficiency improvements to their homes--and put unemployed contractors back to work at the same time--could get a vote in the US House of Representatives in two to three weeks, a key House Democrat said Wednesday.

Massachusetts Democrat Edward Markey told reporters that the so-called Home Star bill would pass the House Energy and Commerce Committee Thursday with little effort and with bipartisan support.

"It will be all boxed up and ready to be transported over to the House floor," he said. "I don't expect it to actually take longer than two or three weeks, but that schedule has yet to be identified."

Home Star will likely move as part of a larger jobs-creation package. Similar language has been offered in the Senate (S. 3177), but no votes have been scheduled.

The draft bill, which has yet to be formally introduced, would authorize $6 billion over two years to provide incentives for energy efficiency upgrades, such as the installation of high-efficiency water heaters or furnaces, or for more extensive overhauls aimed at increasing a home's overall efficiency.

Markey said that Home Star would help demonstrate that Democrats and Republicans can collaborate on legislation even though they did not do so on a major healthcare overhaul bill that cleared both chambers of Congress with no Republican support. "This is going to be a good example of how we can all come together to partner to pass legislation," he said.

Michigan Republican Vernon Ehlers is a cosponsor of the draft, but it is unclear how extensive Republican support for the bill is.

When the Energy and Environment subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee considered the bill in March, the panel's Republicans raised a number of concerns, including whether the measure contained enough safeguards to prevent fraud, and whether it would be too costly.

Representative Peter Welch, who sponsored the measure, said that many Republican concerns had been addressed since the subcommittee considered it.

He said that an agreement was in the works that would ensure the program terminates at the end of 2011.

The bill also would also have a section that would benefit homeowners who do not employ contractors, he said. Welch and others estimated that it would create 168,000 contracting jobs, and the draft would require that all work be completed by professionals. Republicans in the Senate especially have raised concerns about this, however, and Welch said they would be accommodated.

"I think we can work on do-it-yourself," Welch said.

--Jean Chemnick, jean_chemnick@platts.com