WASHINGTON, DC-The Real Estate Roundtable, US Green Building Council and Natural Resources Defense Council have come up with a good reason to push for the White House’s proposed Better Buildings Initiative to come to fruition--114,000 reasons in fact. That is how many jobs the organizations predict will be created through the plan, which aims to make existing commercial and multifamily buildings more energy efficient.

The initiative, announced by President Barack Obama in February, uses a range of financial and tax incentives to get building owners to upgrade existing commercial buildings with the goal of becoming 20% more energy efficient.

Such renovations would also reduce companies’ and business owners’ energy bills by about $40 billion per year, the While House calculated. Suggestions on how the incentives would be funded include a redesign of the current tax deductions for commercial building upgrades to one that is more generous and includes energy-related renovations.

In the five months or so since the program was announced, of course, the debate over the budget deficit and government spending in Washington has reached new highs--or lows, if one takes the heated rhetoric into account--and the expectations that these tweaks to the incentives could be passed by Congress have diminished.

There is still hope, though, that Congress can craft a solution, Duane J. Desiderio, vice president and counsel for the Real Estate Roundtable, told listeners in a conference call held by the three organizations as they released their jobs projections. “While we are mindful of the fact that we are operating in a climate that needs to be attuned to federal debt and the deficit we also know that leaders are looking to generate jobs. This is not a grant or a rebate or a stimulus--this is a focus on existing tax laws that have been underutilized.” Also the jobs that will be created will be largely in the hard hit construction, building operation and maintenance sectors, he added, which should also spur Congress to act.