ICC GOVERNMENT RELATIONS NEWS

Government Relations Highlights — June

It's been a busy June for the Code Council Government Relations (GR) department. Highlights include: The GR staff is working with the BuildStrong Coalition, a group comprised of 20-plus organizations, including ICC, to urge Congress to pass the Safe Building Code Incentive Act (HR 2069). This proposed legislation would provide states that adopt and enforce recognized model building codes an additional four percent in funding for post-disaster grants. In 2004, ICC petitioned the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)/U.S. Department of Labor, on behalf of ICC Members and the jurisdictions that adopt and enforce I-Codes to allow the International Fire Code (IFC) to be used as a compliance option to meet the OSHA requirements in Section 1910, Subpart E, Means of Egresson. On June 8, the agency published its final rule recognizing the 2009 IFC as an employer compliance option. Now, employers in all states that adopt the 2009 IFC can use it as their compliance option in order to meet these OSHA requirements. This will eliminate the need to demonstrate compliance with dual regulations and shows the collaborative efforts between the agency and ICC and its Members. Code Council Vice President of State & Local Government Relations Dorothy Harris was awarded a Certificate of Appreciation from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) for her participation at the 2011 USGBC Upper Northeast Regional Summit, held April 29 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harris made a presentation on the International Green Construction Code (IgCC). Code Council Vice President of Federal and External Relations David Karmol and Director of Fire Service Activities Bruce Johnson are representing ICC on of the newly created American National Standards Institute's (ANSI) Electric Vehicle Standards Panel. The panel is working with major auto industry players and other key infrastructure organizations to discuss priorities on standardization issues impacting design, performance, safety, testing, certification and training. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board commended ICC for taking swift action to incorporate an Emergency Amendment to the International Fuel Gas Code stemming from a natural gas accident at a ConAgra production facility in 2009, and recognizing ICC's continued efforts to "safeguard the health and safety of workers and the members of the public through proactive code changes." On June 20, Code Council Senior Vice President of Government Relations Sara Yerkes hosted one of GR's periodic meetings with the federal agencies that adopt and enforce the I-Codes. This forum facilitates interaction between ICC and the agencies on issues of general interest, including code adoption activity, code hearings, news and changes, and discussion on any pending or new rulemaking. Present at the June meeting were officials from the U.S. Departments of Defense, State, Commerce/NIST, Labor and from the General Services Administration. Tom Phillips from Target and Bob Wible with Robert Wible & Associates presented on building information modeling and automated code checking programs.