We're Back
After the birth of my beautiful daughter, Sydney Annabelle, in December, I took a few weeks off. I will briefly recap a few notable green building law stories which arose while I was on leave, and I will pick up with the impact of the State of The Union address on Monday.
The scoops I missed:
- ICC announced the International Green Construction Code will be released in March. The
IGCC will then go through another round of review, comments and public hearings in 2011 for the publication for the 2012 ICC Family of Codes. ASHRAE also announced Standard 189 (the ASHRAE code compliant green building standard) is due to come out soon, representing approximately 25% energy savings over ASHRAE 90.1 2007 according to Buildinggreen.com
- New York City passed landmark green building legislation
The four major building-related elements of the legislation are: the creation of a citywide energy code; a benchmarking requirement; lighting system upgrades and tenant submetering; and required energy audits and retrocommissioning.
- California adopted the nation's first statewide green construction code, but not without controversy. Some environmental groups moved at the last minute to prevent passage because it was not "green" enough.
- Hawaii's mandate for solar hot water heaters went into effect.
- The White House announced that the Federal Government will reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution by 28 percent by 2020.
Whew! GBLB will be back to its usual twice weekly publishing schedule next week, and thank you for your readership.
Shari focuses on energy, environmental and building code policy, representing international companies, non-profits and trade associations in their policy and communications campaigns
