Page 8 - Green Builder Sept-Oct 2019 Issue

Green Building NEWS

The Latest on Sustainability and Renewable Energy

Incandescent Bulb Ban Gets the Ax

The Trump Administration’s reversal of an energy efficiency lighting requirement is
expected to cost Americans $14 billion yearly.

HE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS ROLLING BACK energy efficiency only mandated that the department issue standards when “economically
standards for light bulbs that would have kept millions of tons of justified.” She maintains that the reversed standards are not.
carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, a move that will “ensure that the
Tchoice of how to light homes and businesses is left to the American
people, not the federal government,” according to U.S. Department of Energy
(DOE) Press Secretary Shaylyn Hynes.
DOE’s action reverses a requirement initiated in 2017 that three-way,
recessed can, candle-shaped and round bulbs switch from incandescent
and halogen bulbs be switched to more energy-efficient LED varieties. The
requirement would have taken effect in January 2020 and would have impacted
bulbs that fill 2.7 billion sockets, nearly half of all nationwide, according to the
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
The DOE also will not update standards for bulbs such as the common pear-
shaped variety still included in an efficiency regulation signed by President
George W. Bush in 2007. Together, the two decisions will increase U.S. energy CREDIT: MARCO VERCH/FLICKR
bills by $14 billion annually up through 2025 and consume at least 25 power
plants worth of energy every year, the NRDC calculated.
NRDC alleges that the rollback is illegal because it violates an “anti- Executive pardon. Certain incandescent light bulbs, once scheduled to
backsliding” provision in the original law that prevents the DOE from weakening be on the way out by 2020, will instead remain in circulation following
standards once they are put in place. But Hynes says the 2007 regulation action by the Trump Administration.

Berkeley Bids Goodbye to Natural Gas

The city’s requirement for all-electric new buildings kicks off in 2020.

ERKELEY, CALIF., has become the nation’s first city to require every
building built from Jan. 1, 2020 or thereafter to be all-electric. The
new ordinance, passed unanimously by the Berkeley City Council,
B means no gas hookups will be installed in new houses, apartments
and commercial buildings. Existing buildings are not affected.
According to a report by NRDC, the action is a major part of the city’s effort
to reduce reliance upon natural gas, a major pollutant that is currently used to
heat 90 percent of the state’s homes. Under the ordinance, natural gas may
be allowed in new projects if an applicant can show that “it is not physically
feasible to construct the building” without it. But the construction must be
built so it can be converted to all-electric in the future, the council notes. CREDIT: NEIL CONWAY/FLICKR
Berkeley is not alone in promoting electric homes. More than 50 other
California cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose and Santa
Monica, are exploring local building codes and ordinances to encourage or require
all-electric new construction. This could pave the way for all of California and No more natural gas. As of Jan. 1, 2020, Berkeley will be no place for
other states to follow suit, NRDC notes. certain natural gas-powered products—the city has passed an ordinance
banning gas hookups in all new homes and buildings
6 GREEN BUILDER September/October 2019 www.greenbuildermedia.com

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