Pennsylvania shines as host of Greenbuild, in spite of Harrisburg obstruction on key green building policy

This week, Pennsylvania is at the center of the green building universe.

Our state's world-class innovation and creativity is on display as over 40,000 green building enthusiasts are in Philly for Greenbuild -- the largest conference dedicated to sustainable building in the world.

One of the key policy drivers of green buildings: Updated building codes. Buildings account for 72 percent of U.S. electricity use and 36 percent of natural gas use. Modern codes arm policy makers and the building industry with new levers to drive greener buildings and healthier communities.

So how does Greenbuild's host state stack up on this key green building policy? [Spoiler: not well.] Is Pennsylvania seizing the opportunity of high-performing, energy efficient, twenty-first century buildings through modern building codes? [Spoiler: no.]

Changes to the building code update process, made by the state legislature and Governor Corbett in 2011 -- at the behest of the home building industry -- are preventing updates to building codes. This means that cost-effective industry best practices are being rejected at the expense of health, safety and energy efficiency.

Hundreds of changes to the building codes recommended in 2012 were all rejected by the board of political appointees charged with updating the state code. These rejected changes include safety improvements in addition to updated energy codes.

Pennsylvania is now building to the 2009, not the 2012, codes. If this process doesn't change, it is unlikely any new code will be adopted in the future.

Even worse, home builders are recommending further changes that would make it even harder to update building codes and could even result in rolling back previous code adoption decisions, enabling codes to revert to much older standards.

With the spotlight of the green building universe on the Keystone state, it's past time for our leaders in Harrisburg to provide the state with the tools to drive innovation and save energy. In Philly parlance: Yo, Harrisburg! Get with the program and fix the building codes mess you created!

Visit BuiltItSafe to tell your legislator to support modern, 21st century building codes.

Home builders: Slow, dysfunctional building code process is A-OK

On Tuesday, the Senate Labor and Industry Committee held a hearing on Sen. Charles McIlhinney's bill that attempts to address the dysfunction in the state's building code adoption process.

The McIlhinney bill would return Pennsylvania to a process whereby codes are automatically adopted unless two-thirds of the members of the Uniform Construction Code Review and Advisory Council (RAC) vote to reject them. Equally critical, the bill would force the RAC to re-review its decision to reject all of the 2012 International Construction Code (ICC) updates.

At the hearing, there was unanimous consensus that Pennsylvania's building code adoption process needs to be fixed. What the appropriate fix is, well, that was the source of great debate -- and will determine whether Pennsylvania has safe, well-constructed, energy efficient buildings or if the state's building codes lag behind and remain out of date.

According to RAC Chairman Frank Thompson and the Pennsylvania Builders Association (PBA) -- the latter an influential interest group of home builders -- the answer is simple. Fix an already slow, dysfunctional, process by making it glacially slow.

After choosing not to adopt any of the hundreds of common-sense code updates in 2012, their solution is to put off making any new code decisions until 2016 -- by changing the code adoption cycle from three to six years. Senator McIlhinney, a Bucks County Republican, described this solution as "ridiculous." [Hint: He's right.]

McIlhinney's proposed fix: Streamline the process by restoring Pennsylvania to a system where updated codes are automatically adopted unless a two-thirds majority of the RAC votes them out. People in the know call this the "opt-out" process. This would allow for hundreds of common-sense (often, simply semantic) code changes to take effect, while allowing for substantive analysis on proposed changes that merit debate.

Equally important, it would mandate that the RAC do its job and re-examine the 2012 code changes. In 2012, the RAC failed to perform the required analysis for code changes and, inconsistent with the law, arbitrarily voted not to adopt any of the 2012 codes. Hundreds of changes to the building codes recommended by the ICC were summarily rejected. These rejected changes include building and safety improvements in addition to updated energy efficiency standards.

Pennsylvania Builders Association (PBA) representative Joe Mingioni, who was also on the RAC in 2012 when it rejected the updates, admitted as much at Tuesday's hearing. He said that the decision not to adopt any new codes in 2012 was a "policy statement" rather than a decision against each code update on its merit.

The former RAC member's moment of candor -- admitting that the group failed to follow the analysis requirements of the law and instead rejected each and every code update in a policy statement  -- begs a couple key questions: What would prevent the RAC from making another policy statement in 2016 and again dismissing all code changes? Why is it reasonable to assume that 19 political appointees with no staff could possibly analyze hundreds of code changes and reach a two-thirds majority on each?  Why has Pennsylvania decided to give so much regulatory authority to an unelected, industry-dominated advisory committee, rather than keeping the final say with the Department of Labor and Industry?

One suspects that the RAC as currently constituted will never meet a set of code changes it likes -- and codes in Pennsylvania could remain anchored in 2009 since it will always be easier for the RAC to take no action than to reach a two-thirds consensus. (This theory was borne out in 2012.)

PBA's Mingioni also complained that "special interests" (read: manufacturers of energy efficiency products) were driving the attempt to fix the RAC process. We'll let that sink in for a moment...a powerful and well-connected special interest group standing in the way of progress is complaining that special interests are trying to change the process. Pot, meet kettle. If any special interest has a strangle-hold on the process, it's the home builders and their allies.

By the way, the number of energy efficiency representatives on the nineteen-member RAC? Zero.

If you support safe and energy efficient buildings in Pennsylvania, visit BuildItSafe.org and take action.