Green Building Law Blog

Contrary to common belief that nothing is really happening in green building at the Congressional level these days, I provide the following two counterexamples. Of course, neither of these efforts are designed to promote energy efficiency or green building, but that doesn't mean that nothing is happening.

 An amendment to the Senate Appropriations Bill for Energy and Water introduced by Senators Wicker (R-MS), Boozman (R-AR), and Inhofe (R-OK) would essentially eliminate the use of LEED and Energy Star for DOE green building programs.  According to the NRDC:  

This rider would prevent the Department of Energy (DOE) from using strong green building energy rating standards. The amendment limits DOE to using only green building standards that are developed and approved in accordance with American National Standards Institute (ANSI) rules. Such a requirement would effectively limit DOE to using only the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and Green Globes building standards.The amendment would disallow the use of many other rating systems, including LEED, EPA Energy Star Portfolio Manager, and EPA Energy Star Homes, which have substantially increased the number of environmentally-friendly buildings in our country.
 

In other news, Rep. Charles J. Fleischmann [R-TN-3] introduced a bill yesterday in the House H.R.3441 to repeal the Department of Energy's home weatherization assistance program.  The DOE weatherization assistance program provides funding to states to weatherize the homes of low income households to make them more energy efficient.  According to the WAP website:

During the past 33 years, WAP has provided weatherization services to more than 6.4 million low-income households. Families receiving weatherization services see their annual energy bills reduced by an average of about $437, depending on fuel prices.  

According to a recent release from the National Association for State Community Services Programs, the WAP received $5b in funding from ARRA, which weatherized 534,208 low-income houses through August 2011. This made the WAP seventh out of approximately 200 federal programs funded by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) in jobs created or retained, with 14,090 jobs  for the third quarter beginning July 1 and ending September 30, 2011.

The bill is not yet available from the GPO, but it can be followed on Thomas through this link.