New Senate Energy Bill Poses Concerns for The Commercial Real Estate Industry

BOMA San Francisco Members: 

On May 16, 2011, the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act (S. 1000) of 2011 was introduced in the United States Senate.  The bill’s sponsors believe it will promote energy savings in buildings, utilities, industry and transportation.  BOMA International has reservations about this measure with regard to commercial buildings including the  concern that it's passage will lead to building codes that are not cost effective and will leave the door open for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to produce a national model building code, which BOMA opposes.

For the better part of the past decade, BOMA International has been working to educate Congress that overly aggressive and arbitrary energy efficiency targets in building codes is an ineffective way to legislate energy efficiency. The sponsors of the bill provided opportunities for the real estate community to comment on the legislation before its introduction and incorporated some of BOMA's suggested modifications into the bill.

BOMA believes that DOE’s appropriate role in the building code development process is to provide technical support and DOE should not be given expanded authority that could potentially allow them to develop future model building codes.