Looking back at AIA COTE® federal advocacy efforts in 2018, most of our work was writing and delivering statements of opposition to planned EPA and Administration actions that we believed were diametrically opposed to AIA COTE®’s principles. We opposed the EPA’s “Affordable Clean Energy Rule” (a rollback of the Clean Power Plan), the “Significant New Use Rule” that proposed new avenues for approving the use of asbestos, the proposed de-regulation of hydrofluorocarbon leakage from refrigerant systems, and the elimination of the words “climate change” from FEMA’s strategic planning documents. We also worked with the AIA President and Advocacy & Relationships staff to support “CO2toEE”, a private coalition that proposes the participation of buildings in any carbon pricing plan, and to endorse Architecture 2030’s Zero Net Carbon building code.
But the change in leadership in the US House of Representatives in 2019 will present us with new advocacy opportunities. In 2019, the new Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committees will have the power to put progressive environmental legislation on their agendas and to review the lawful compliance of agencies such as the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. We have already begun working with AIA senior staff to create a directory of AIA COTE® Member-constituents of target elected members of this important standing committee as well as the members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. We plan to host home district meetings with these elected officials early in December this year followed by early 2019 conferences with leadership in Washington, DC.
Realizing the likely difficulty of getting progressive environmental legislation passed in this Congress, we nevertheless see this as an opportunity to identify our most effective Congressional allies. We can begin the discussion about public policy changes that would align with the AIA COTE®’s mission and–possibly–become law under a future Administration. The proposals we would currently like to advance include a redesign of the 179D Commercial Buildings Energy Efficiency tax deduction and the streamlining of interstate distributed generation and interconnection standards. The time to develop more ideas like these is now.
Just last month in advocacy
AIA joined 40 companies and organizations as signatories to the Alliance to Save Energy’s energy tax incentives letter urging Congress to update and extend energy efficiency tax incentives for homeowners, consumers, and businesses. A fact sheet on the incentives is here.