A subcommittee of North Carolina’s Building Codes Commission is set to recommend watered down energy efficiency improvements to the residential building codes.
The improvements were part of a package developed as part of a grant from the Bush administration’s Energy Department. Gov. Perdue promised President Obama the new standards would be enacted before 2017. She made the promise in order to get nearly $76 million from the stimulus bill for energy projects.
The improvements would increase the requirements on builders for things like insulation, windows, framing and more.
Builders convinced the subcommittee to ease the regulations by claiming increased costs would threaten to put the builders out of business.
To watch CarolinaJournal.tv’s full report on the controversy over new efficiency mandates, click on the video.
Anthony Greco is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.