ICC GOVERNMENT RELATIONS NEWS

Government Relations Highlights — September

ICC to Deliver Keynote Address at Regional Energy Codes Conference The International Code Council and its energy conservation code will hold the spotlight Oct. 16-18 at the first multi-state Regional Energy Codes Conference in Omaha, sponsored by the Nebraska Energy Office. Dave Karmol, ICC Vice President of Federal and External Affairs, will deliver the opening keynote address for the conference on Oct. 17. The keynote speaker for the Oct. 18 session will be Kym Carey, Code Deployment Project Manager of the U.S. Department of Energy's Building Technologies Program. Targeted for code officials, building professionals and energy conservation advocates in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado, the Regional Energy Codes Conference will present innovative ways to address enforcement and compliance of energy codes. Sessions will present information on the values of codes, how to adopt and implement codes and grassroots advocacy. The conference will have separate commercial and residential building code tracks. The commercial sessions will examine building design, R-values and efficiency requirements. The residential session will cover green building, envelope tightness and review of typical house designs. Special sessions will include real estate advantages of selling energy efficient homes and review of the codes for heating, ventilation and air conditioning contractors. Distinctions between the 2009 and 2012 International Energy Conservation Codes will be presented. “For the past decade, the Energy Office has provided information, training and enforcement expertise on building energy codes to local officials, builders, designers and consumers, said Ginger Willson, Director of the Nebraska Energy Office. “We’re pleased to be able to offer this information opportunity to others across the region.” Registration and additional information about the Great Plains Energy Codes Conference is available at: http://www.neo.ne.gov/codesconf/.

CBO Publishes Paper on Overcoming Market Barriers to Energy Efficiency In August, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published a paper in a series of working papers where their analysts tried to discover how to increase the energy efficiency of the built environment as a whole by making energy efficiency more prominent and attractive to builders and building owners. As those in the building sector are well aware, a large share of total U.S. energy consumption—40 percent—occurs in homes and buildings. Homes and buildings are less energy efficient than they could be, not because of a lack of technology or tools such as codes and standards, but because people should be able to assess the value of energy savings more easily and correctly, and energy prices should provide them with stronger incentives to do so. The CBO paper identifies three reasons why people undervalue energy savings: misperceived energy prices, imperfect information about energy efficiency, and biased reasoning about energy savings. The paper then examines four types of policy options for addressing those underlying market imperfections: prices that reflect the social costs of energy use, financial incentives for efficient systems and products, adoption of energy efficiency codes and standards, and availability of better information about energy efficiency. The paper makes a compelling case for utilizing energy efficiency codes and standards, specifically referencing the IECC and ASHRAE 90.1, and advocates devoting funds to make sure they are enforced regularly.