The government wants you to make your home more energy efficient and has come up with some proposals on how you can pay for it.  Now the challenge is to figure out the best way to assist homeowners in taking on this expensive endeavor of retrofitting their homes for energy efficiency.

According to a new report out of the White House Monday, making older homes more energy efficient could save $21 billion a year.

No new tax dollars are allocated for the proposal, but stimulus money sent to state energy offices would help.

Currently new homes can get an "energy efficient" label, but older ones cannot. The government wants to establish a "national home energy performance measure," to allow older homes the same label.

Some suggestions on how to help homeowners pay for making homes more efficient includes allowing them to put the cost of energy improvements onto their property taxes to avoid upfront costs. When the home is sold, the cost of those improvements would be passed along to the new owner.

Another way to finance the improvements would be to add them on to a mortgage when a home is sold. 

Fifteen states currently have a state revolving loan fund. This report calls for expanding that to all states to allow consumers to borrow money for home energy retrofits at lower interest rates.

Finally the "Recovery through Retrofit" report calls for national standards to train and certify workers in the energy efficiency business.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration unveiled a new effort to provide mortgage help for thousands of homeowners Monday. The program, that will be run through state and local housing agencies, is designed to keep mortgage rates low and expand resources for low and middle income borrowers who want to buy or rent a home.