Posted by
BLOGASSAULT on Saturday, October 31, 2009 1:19:56 PM
The thing that caught my attention in his article was this paragraph...
In the name of “the environment,” the state gets to regulate everything you do. The cap-and-trade bill recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, for example, is a bold assault on property rights: in order to sell your home—whether built in 2006 or 1772—you would have to bring it into compliance with whimsical, eternally evolving national “energy ef?ciency” standards, starting with a 50 per cent reduction in energy use by 2018. Fail to do so and it would be illegal for you to enter into a private contract with a willing buyer.
If this is to believed, this is clearly government intrusion on a scale that only the democrats could be so bold as to propose. So I did a little investigation. House bill
H.R. 2454 is legislation waiting for debate in the house and the senate, otherwise known as the 'cap and trade bill'.
Here is what section 201 of the bill has to say:
Subtitle A - Building Energy Efficiency Programs
Section 201, Greater Energy Efficiency in Building Codes:
Amends the Energy Conservation and Production Act to require the Secretary of Energy to support consensus code-setting organizations to establish building codes achieving 30% and 50% higher energy efficiency targets in 2010 and 2016, respectively, to establish codes directly if such organizations fail to do so, to include cool roofs standards, and to support state and local adoption of such advanced codes by supporting training and funding for energy efficiency code enforcement.
Section 202, Building Retrofit Program:
Establishes a program under which the Administrator of EPA, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy, supports development of standards and processes for retrofitting existing residential and nonresidential buildings. Authorizes the Secretary of Energy to provide funding to states to conduct cost-effective building retrofits, using local governments, other agencies or entities to carry out the work, through flexible forms of financial assistance up to 50% of the costs of retrofits, with funding increasing in proportion to efficiency achievement. Also supports retrofits of historic buildings.
Section 203, Energy Efficient Manufactured Homes:
Establishes a program to provide federal rebates of up to $7,500 toward purchases of new Energy Star-rated manufactured homes for low- income families residing in pre-1976 manufactured homes.
It is not clear in the language whether this is mandated or whether this will be a voluntary effert. But that in itself is the problem. If it is not clear, it needs to be rewriten or removed. Do you want to have to update your home to meet a bunch of new effeciency standards just so you can sell it? Obviously, the market works pretty well on it's own. It's hard to sell a house with an old, out-dated or broken furnace, but one sells better if it has a new one. There are losts of people who have lost their jobs recently and need out of their homes because they can't afford the mortgage anylonger. What if it's an old home and it needs a new furnace to meet the new standards? How is that person who has no job going to afford a $4000 furnace replacement?
I think one thing is clear though; the govenment will be enforceing up to 50% more efficeint bulding codes over the next few years, forcing the price of new buldings up and possibly impairing the ability to sell an existing one.
New codes are okay, but trying to force those high of standards in that short of time will cost a lot of money and could force some small business's out of business.