If you’re a U.S. homeowner thinking of upgrading your heating and energy systems in the next few years, you’ll want to keep an eye on a proposal called “Recovery Through Retrofit.” (pdf file)

To answer the most important question, yes, there will be money available.

The Department of Energy today also announced $454 million in Recovery Act financing for home retrofits and energy efficiency.

Stimulus funds amounting to $390 million will go to the new “Retrofit Ramp-Up” initiative, intended to help create partnerships to deliver energy bill savings to entire neighborhoods and towns.

This is a proposed policy that just came out of the Vice Presiden’s Office.

At a Middle Class Task Force meeting earlier this year, the vice president asked the White House Council on Environmental Quality to develop a proposal for federal action to lay the groundwork for a self-sustaining home energy efficiency retrofit industry.

In response, the Council set in motion an interagency process with the Office of the Vice President, six other White House Offices and 11 departments and agencies to develop recommendations for how to use existing authority and funding to accomplish this goal.

Here’s a chance to see whether a good idea can make it all the way from proposal to policy to possible legislation and remain a good idea. That’s the way it’s theoretically supposed to work, but too often these days doesn’t. But this sis an idea that would create jobs, cut energy costs, improve people’s houses and save them money. Sounds like a no-brainer.