Tougher Building Codes are a Must!

Great article on the need for tougher building codes across the U.S. for greater energy efficiency

Austin has had tough building codes for 25 years and as a result was able to forgo building another coal-fired power plant.

Tough codes make sense any way you look at it: cost-savings for consumers (particularly low-income households) in the form of lower energy bills; job-creation with greater demand for energy-efficient building; carbon- dioxide reduction for EVERYONE.

Without a national mandate, private builders will not have the incentive to participate and a tougher mandate in one town would encourage builders to find the cheapest (a.k.a. the weakest energy codes) place to build. This is essentially a race to the bottom and would be much more expensive in the long-run.

There is already plenty of federal and state-funding in the form of tax credits to participate. Now all we need is a mandate that ALL new buildings be built to maximum energy efficiency, with tougher standards put in place every year as the technology allows.