Draft of Senate Climate Bill Punts on National Energy Efficiency Building Code
by Shari Shapiro
A draft of the Boxer-Kerry senate version of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill was leaked to the media this week. I have previously posted about the proposed National Energy Efficiency Code in the Waxman-Markey bill and in the first proposed senate bill ACELA.
Both of those proposed Energy Efficiency Codes had specific energy efficiency targets, timelines, adoption and implementation plans, and enforcement, though they differed somewhat in the specifics. Not so the Boxer-Kerry Bill. What had been pages of turgid regulatory prose in the prior two bills has been condensed to a mere page and a half — Section 174, starting on page 113 of the draft bill for those of you following at home.
The most interesting part is that all specifics have disappeared. No mandated energy efficiency savings, no specifics for implementation timeline, no enforcement, nothing. Just a mandate that the Department of Energy or “other agency head or heads as may be designated by the President”
shall promulgate regulations establishing building code energy efficiency targets…beginnning not later than January 1, 2014…
There is also a section requiring the suitable administrator to “promulgate regulations establishing national energy efficiency building codes.” The entire specifics of the regulations are as follows:
