1. Short title; findings (a) Short title This Act may be cited as the American Renewable Energy and Efficiency Act . (b) Findings Congress finds that— (1) the Federal renewable electricity standard established by section 610 of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (as added by this Act) establishes a market-based policy to create ongoing competition among renewable electricity generators across the United States and provide the greatest quantity of clean electricity for the lowest price; (2) the United States has vast wind, solar, hydropower, biomass, and geothermal resources that— (A) are renewable; (B) are dispersed widely across different regions of the United States; and (C) can be harnessed to generate a significant share of electricity in the United States; (3) the Federal energy efficiency resource standard established by section 611 of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (as added by this Act)— (A) establishes nationwide minimum levels of electricity and natural gas savings to be achieved through utility efficiency programs, building energy codes, appliance standards, and related efficiency measures; and (B) rewards energy-saving improvements achieved through— (i) end-use energy efficiency upgrades; (ii) reduced losses in transmission and distribution of energy; and (iii) fuel switching, to the extent that the switching results in reduced primary energy use; and (4) in light of the cost-effective energy efficiency opportunities that exist across the United States in every sector of the economy, retail electricity suppliers, retail natural gas suppliers, and States should— (A) include energy efficiency as a resource in utility planning and procurement activities