More than 7.2 million jobs have been lost in the U.S. since the start of the recession, and President Obama sees home retrofits for boosting energy efficiency and the expansion of highly competitive stimulus programs for green energy projects as two of the keys for turning that trend around. Today's speech comes on the heels of reports that the White House has been considering a 2-year, $23 billion program to encourage homeowners to undertake weatherization projects such as adding air sealing, insulation and energy-saving lightbulbs — dubbed the "cash for caulkers" program — widely cheered, unsurprisingly, by the home energy retrofit industry. Overall, the U.S. home energy retrofit market is poised to grow about 15 percent per year to $35 billion by 2013, up from $20.7 billion last year, according to a recent report from SBI Energy.