Dryvit testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming in May on the benefits of exterior insulation on homes and commercial structures.

Tony Stall, vice president of marketing for Dryvit, was asked to appear before the committee by Representative John Sullivan (R-Okla.), whom he had met during Congressman Sullivan’s visit to a Dryvit production facility located near Tulsa, Okla., in 2007.

Stall described the independent government analyses of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the National Institute of Standards and Technology that found that Dryvit’s Outsulation systems are 84 percent more energy efficient than other tested cladding systems while at the same time producing a significantly smaller carbon footprint over the tested 50-year lifecycle.

“Approximately 80 percent of buildings and virtually all those built prior to 1970 are more poorly insulated than required by current building Codes. That is a significant problem when you consider that the USGBC asserts that more than 40 percent of all energy used in the United States is used to heat, cool and operate buildings. Developing cost effective, energy efficient strategies for both new and existing buildings are of the highest national priority, and we can immediately and meaningfully reduce our dependence on foreign, non-renewable energy sources by raising standards for the energy efficiency of all types of buildings,” Stall said in his testimony.

Stall was one of five witnesses asked to testify; and the only construction industry manufacturer’s representative. Others who testified included Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco; Kent Peterson, president of ASHRAE; Michelle Moore, senior vice president of policy and market development for the United States Green Building Council; and the actor Edward Norton, in his capacity as a board member and Trustee of the Enterprise Foundation, a green building-based low income housing initiative.