Yes, “the federal government should not be involved” is based partly on my political ideology, which celebrates the people’s power to act. I encourage you to participate in my June 23rd energy forum and join the watt – a – month club.

“If all the states and localities had improved their codes”. Many, many states and localities have or are doing so now. From the biggest cities like L.A. and Chicago to tiny communities like Greensburg, Wisconsin, it is happening all across the country.

The Billions and billions of dollars for building efficiency in the stimulus bill has not even begun to get spent. Consumer spending on efficiencies and alternatives is strengthening.
My main reason

Again, if all the states and localities had improved their codes then federal action wouldn’t be necessary. Your belief that “the federal government should not be involved” is one based on a particular ideology. My preference is to get the job done for certain, and ASAP. The only way to guarantee that is to do it for the whole country–i.e., the federal government. I don’t think we should be fiddling while Rome burns. As Joe has pointed out, the sure way to end up with draconian federal regulation later is to prevent ANY regulation now.

State and local governments have building codes. They can, should and some do incorporate efficiencies in their codes. The federal government should not be involved and the people should improve the codes in their states and localities.

As part of my new career as a carbon dependency activist, I’m organizing an energy event June 23rd in Chicago. Efficiency will be prominent in the presentations.

They aren’t mandating savings, they are mandating actions which will reduce energy use, and will result in savings. If the free market had “taken care of that” the mandates wouldn’t have been necessary in the first place.

If the free market were working correctly then we wouldn’t need the standards. The problem is that the market is a reactive system – bldgs would increase efficiency only *after* energy prices rise considerably. Then we are all stuck with inefficient bldgs. Setting standards allows us to work proactively and not just react to things. Bldgs are long term investments, so it makes sense for them.

Also with peak oil and peak coal looming, unlimited increases in fossil based energy are not possible. This will lead to a limited resource condition and cause even more government intervention (such as rationing) which is much worse than bldg codes. Actually, the rationing wouldn’t even be govt based, it could be rolling black outs as we’ve seen in CA before. Is that a better solution than some bldg codes?

The building is at CalTech.

“From 1991 to 1995, he and his wife served as correspondents and co-bureau chiefs in the Moscow bureau, covering Russia and the former Soviet Union. From 1987 to 1990, the Hiatts were co-bureau chiefs of The Post’s Northeast Asia bureau, based in Tokyo, and reported on Korea and Japan. … Before joining the foreign staff of The Washington Post, Hiatt covered military and national security affairs for three years as a member of the newspaper’s national staff.”

http://www.latimes.com/ news/ opinion/ la-oe-goldberg9-2009jun09,0,1940877.column

and be sure to read the comments after the article, which are even more horrifying.

The push to deny and delay in the mainstream media is actually *stronger* than ever before — and more people than ever before are falling for it simply because it is, um, inconvenient to face the truth.

June 9th, 2009 at 9:27 am
> Well there you have it John. They OPTED for the LEED building. Not were MANDATED to build.

“It seems that your politics are showing. If in fact money is saved, what’s wrong with a mandate, when we need to conserve energy for multiple reasons (current fossil fuels are a finite resource, CO2 pollution from burning coal, mercury pollution from burning coal, degradation of the environment by blowing the tops off mountains, national security issues related to reliance on foreign oil, etc.).
Fortunately, California is more progressive, as “Los Angeles is the largest
city to MANDATE (emphasis added) “green” building for new private development.”

Of course my politics are showing, mandating savings is not the government’s business. Free market action will take care of that.
I wouldn’t be too fast with the “California is more progressive” statements, as we all know they are broke. Nice job progressives!!!!!

It seems that your politics are showing. If in fact money is saved, what’s wrong with a mandate, when we need to conserve energy for multiple reasons (current fossil fuels are a finite resource, CO2 pollution from burning coal, mercury pollution from burning coal, degradation of the environment by blowing the tops off mountains, national security issues related to reliance on foreign oil, etc.).

Fortunately, California is more progressive, as “Los Angeles is the largest
city to MANDATE (emphasis added) “green” building for new private development.”

http://www.paulhastings.com/ assets/ publications/ 946.pdf?wt.mc_ID=946.pdf

Searched and searched for the other link, but can’t find it. I remember it clearly, because I was so surprised.