Schwarzenegger’s green building collapse?
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Last year, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed three bills that would have set stringent state standards for green buildings, his rationale dovetailed with that of the powerful California Building Industry Assn. Rather than set rules by legislation, the governor argued, a new State Green Building Code, under development by the California Building Standards Commission, would deal with the issue.
On Thursday, the commission is slated to meet in Sacramento to adopt the new code. But far from setting tough rules to save energy, water and use promote eco-friendly materials, the proposed code would actually undermine green building standards set by 75 California cities and counties, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, according to green building advocates.
No surprise there, since the commission’s advisory committee is chaired by Robert Raymer, technical director of the California Building Industry Assn.
According to draft testimony prepared by John Walser of the Northern California chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, a national non-profit industry group, the proposed state code ‘would represent a lower environmental threshold than the basic levels of qualification for the most commonly used green building rating systems, including the one the state adopted for its own buildings: the LEED rating system.’ (LEED, a national benchmark for green buildings, stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).
If the proposed state rules are adopted, he asserts, ‘local governments may face legal challenges when attempting to adopt a more stringent code.’ Among its other deficiencies, he notes, the new code fails to include adequate standards on recycling, renewable energy and the use of wood (allowing dubious industry-certified wood instead of mandating wood vetted as sustainably harvested by the national Forest Stewardship Council).
A July 14 memo prepared by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a national group with 250,000 California members, calls the draft ‘severely flawed ... potentially preempting already adopted local green building standards.’ The new code ‘would serve a disheartening blow to these communities which sought to reduce greenhouse gas emissions...’ it charges.
A spokesman for the building industry association, John Frith, said the advisory committees ‘do not write code. That is the job of the various state agencies.’ And Raymer added that the state code serves as a ‘minimum threshold’ and would not interfere with local standards.
But environmentalists are mobilizing this week to persuade the Governor’s staff that it would embarrass him to adopt a weak new code only weeks after the state issued a draft plan to cut back its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% in the next 12 years. Schwarzenegger touts the battle against global warming as one of his signature issues.
Residential and commercial structures that waste energy through heating, air conditioning, and poor choice of materials, are major emitters of planet-heating gases. Overall, buildings represent 39% of US primary energy use and account for 40 % of carbon dioxide emissions nationwide.
--Margot Roosevelt