Of note to the housing community, the North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act of 2015 included a provision that would promote energy efficiency in buildings while ensuring that home builders and home owners are not burdened by unreasonable regulations.
Specifically, the provision would:
- Improve affordability by requiring any DOE-supported code proposal has a payback period of 10 years or less, meaning that these higher costs will be paid back through utility savings.
- Increase transparency in the development of model building energy codes by ensuring that all DOE code change proposals are made available to the public, including calculations on costs and savings.
- Ensure product neutrality by prohibiting DOE from advocating on behalf of certain products or technologies.
- Protect a state’s right to adopt any code, standard or version deemed appropriate.