NAHB to Congress: Keep Dangling Green Building Carrots, Don’t Wave Sticks

In testimony yesterday before the House Small Business Committee, the National Association of Home Builders emphasized its belief that voluntary energy efficiency programs and tax incentives remain the best approach for reducing residential energy consumption across America rather than blanket federal mandates. Pennsylvania home builder Frank Thompson told the Committee that “Congress should be promoting voluntary energy efficiency programs, extending tax incentives for highly efficient new home construction and protecting housing affordability from arbitrary building code increases when adopting new energy policy.” Thompson noted NAHB’s development of its own green building standards for residential construction, which has been accredited by the American National Standards Institute, and stressed that “[e]stablishing mandatory benchmarks and rigorous federal oversight for state building codes would subvert the consensus-code development process, violate states’ rights and impose unwanted and exorbitant costs on home buyers.” His comments came in light of a proposed provision in energy bill H.R. 3221, which would allow the Department of Energy to write code in states that fail to achieve certain energy benchmarks.

• Builders Oppose Attempts to Federalize State Code Process (NAHB)