Advocacy Update January 24th

Federal Update

On Tuesday, the House Energy & Commerce Committee vote on H.R. 2126, the “Better Buildings Act” sponsored by Reps. David McKinley (R-WV) and Peter Welch (D-VT). USGBC supports this bill and have has been working with real estate community to advance the bill in both the House and Senate.

The bill, authorizes the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) Administrator to consult with the Secretary of Energy to develop model leasing provisions and voluntary best leasing practices that align landlords and tenants to achieve greater energy efficiency in commercial buildings. The bill also establishes a voluntary recognition program developed by the EPA Administrator, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy dubbed “Tenant Star.” This work act as an Energy Star designation for tenant fit outs.

For more information on the bill please visit the Energy and Commerce website.

Department of Energy, Green Affordable Housing Webinar

Thursday, January 302:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time The Energy Department will present a live webinar titled "Overcoming Persistent Barriers to Energy Efficiency in Multifamily Housing through Partnerships." Multifamily housing presents tremendous opportunities for improving energy efficiency nationwide, but has been a perennially difficult sector to tackle. While in many cases multifamily work has fallen outside of the jurisdiction of state energy offices (SEOs), this webinar will discuss how SEOs can play a key role by partnering with entities like housing authorities, utilities, and private investors to enhance and support energy efficiency policies and programs in this sector. Webinar Sponsor: Weatherization and Intergovernmental Program Register to attend the webinar: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/361976094.

January Advocates Slides and Recording

I have posted the slides and recording and recording from the January 13th monthly advocates call. Along with addition resources from the Alliance for Justice.

The February Advocates Call is on February 10th at 4pm ET. Here is the link to log into the webinar.

Chapter Corner

A lot is happening across the country, so let's start at the very beginning of the alphabet. Don't worry, it's not all bad news!

Alabama

SB 152 was introduced last Wednesday. The chapter has been working tirelessly to activate their members and work with coalition partners on defeating this legislation. Check out USGBC of AL's website.

Arkansas

Northwest Kansas is greening the MLS! This MLS region also covers parts of Oklahoma and Missouri. The chapter banded together with a few other nonprofits to cover the software for the (not so) whopping cost of $900.

Michigan and South Carolina

South Carolina is going to get two mentions this week. Advocacy volunteers in both states took to social media to elevate green building into the statewide policy chatter of each state's governor's state of the state address. In an election year, these speeches often are much more jobs and the economy focused, so they tweeted and posted about the impact of the green building sector has on each state's economy. To see what each chapter said, check out their Twitter and Facebook accounts: @USGBC_Detroit and @determinedrenae, @USGBC_SC and @AlanMHancock.

If you are interested in how you can use your governor's state of the state address, I posted on Yammer some examples of what you can do - they are not green building related, just to give you a look at how it can be done. Looking forward to the other chapters who will be live tweeting along with their governor's state of the state address! 

South Carolina

H3592 is a "LEED freeze" bill introduced in the South Carolina Legislature. The bill is scheduled for a committee hearing on February 5th in the Senate Ag and Natural Resources Committee. The chapter is working with a diverse coalition to lobby legislators.

Washington

SB 6341 was introduced earlier this week in the Washington Senate. The bill replaces the state’s commitment to leadership with LEED with a government-developed program. Cascadia GBC is in touch with the bill sponsors as well as allies in the Senate and USGBC has reached out the Governor's office. 

Weekly Update: Post-Polar Vortex

Post-Polar Vortex

Hope everyone survived the Polar Vortex and maybe tried out some of the homemade science experiments that went viral earlier this week.

January Advocates Call: Advocacy and Lobbying Rules and Regulations

Date: Monday, January 13, 2014

Time: 4:00 PM ET

The info below is to access the webinar. I highly recommend that you participate via the webinar

Meeting Number:             755 323 730

Meeting Password:          Adv0cacy

Call-in toll-free number (US/Canada): 1-866-469-3239  use the meeting number above for the code.

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To start or join the online meeting

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Go to https://usgbc.webex.com/usgbc/j.php?ED=224635977&UID=507270947&PW=NODdlZjEzNDEy&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D

Green Building Initiative's New President

The Green Building Initiative (GBI) announced today that it has named Jerry Yudelson as its president to accelerate growth of the non-profit and further leverage its green building assessment tools, including the highly recognized Green Globes^® rating system, as it brings green building options to a larger audience of owners, designers, facility managers and investors. Read more.

ASHRAE standard 189.1 will be republished in 2014 for adoption in the IgCC 2015.

ASHRAE standard 189.1 will be republished in 2014 for adoption in the IgCC 2015. You can go online today and participate in meetings, public reviews, and more .. 

State of the State Addresses

It's that time of year! Governors are setting their policy priorities through state of the state addresses. Also, for many states, it kicks off their budget proposals to the state's legislature. If you are unsure of when your state's address is happening, find it here.

Also, consider some activities you can do around state of the state addresses to elevate green building issues. We will talk more about different activities on Monday's advocates call.

Chapter Corner

Georgia

USGBC Georgia Chapter attracts new audiences with high performance healthy schools message

Rhode Island
Governor Lincoln Chafee is the keynote speaker for USGBC Rhode Island's annual meeting.

South Carolina
South Carolina's Green Schools Caucus will brief state senators on January 15th.

Campaigns

Leadership with LEED

Common Ground Around Green Schools

Mainstream Building Benchmarking

Improve Energy Data Access

Build Better Codes

Value Healthy and Efficient Affordable Housing

Highlight Green Homes

First 2014 Advocacy Update

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone had a safe and restful holiday season. There is not much going on, so this update will be short.

January Advocates Call: Advocacy and Lobbying Rules Overview

As a refresher course, Susan Dorn, USGBC's General Counsel and I will go over advocacy and lobbying rules for advocates and chapters. This is recommended for anyone interested in advocacy. This will be an overview of IRS rules for 501(c)(3) organizations.

Date: Monday, January 13th
Time: 4pm-5pm EST

Meeting Number: 755 323 730

Meeting Password: Adv0cacy

To start or join the online meeting

Go to https://usgbc.webex.com/usgbc/j.php?ED=224635977&UID=507270947&PW=NODdlZjEzNDEy&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D

Audio conference information

Call-in toll number (US/Canada): 1-650-429-3300

Access code:755 323 730

Advocacy Update, December 20th

Last Advocacy Week in Review of 2013

Reminders for 2014

2014 Advocacy Planning - Chapter Priorities

It was great to see so many chapter volunteers and staff at Greenbuild. Many of you heard about the 2014 Chapter priorities, specifically about Advocacy in 2014, in Philly or prior to that when the Community Advancement team hosted an online forum to role out the priorities in the Fall. 

The 2014 chapter advocacy priority will continue to carry forward USGBC’s seven advocacy campaigns. In addition, USGBC will collaborate with chapters to establish critical infrastructure for our advocacy work in 2015 and beyond. We will provide resources, support and training to help each chapter craft their unique 2015 Chapter Advocacy Plan. We have provided two documents to help chapters move towards this new approach. One of the documents is a tool developed by the Aspen Institute to help organizations do long-term planning and an internal guideline we have put together for chapters.

2014 Monthly Advocacy Call

Apologies for the confusion with this month's advocacy call. In 2014, our monthly calls will be 4pm every 3rd Monday of the Month. However, January's call will be on Monday, January 13th and February's call is on Monday, February 10th. USGBC observes Martin Luther King, Jr Day and Presidents Day, the office is closed those days.

Click to add the calls/webex to your calendar. The calendar invite will include the webex link and call in number.

Federal Update

With only a few short weeks before the New Year, the House and Senate completed a series of important legislative milestones including the bipartisan budget deal. With this budget deal in place, the House and Senate Appropriations Committee will begin to formally negotiate over the holiday recess by dividing up some $498.1 billion in domestic discretionary spending. They will have until January 15^th to negotiate a spending package to replace the expiring continuing resolution to fund the government for rest of the fiscal year. More details will become available in early January so stay tuned for developments.

Congress has also cleared the re-authorization of programs at the Department of Defense, which authorizes $632.8 billion for the Pentagon and defense-related programs for FY 2014.This year’s authorization no longer contains limitations regarding the Department of Defense's use of green building codes and rating systems, including LEED. For more information on these provisions and others the summary of the defense bills are included here.

Chapter News

New Jersey Priority Permitting bill

SB 2732 directs the Department of Community Affairs, the Department of Environmental Protection, the Department of Transportation, municipal agencies, and county planning boards to give priority consideration to permit applications for green building projects.

USGBC-North Pole News

In case anyone was wondering about about the greenness of Santa's workshop.

By Chartwell, Inc.

Happy Holidays! See you in 2014.

Campaigns

Leadership with LEED

Common Ground Around Green Schools

Mainstream Building Benchmarking

Improve Energy Data Access

Build Better Codes

Value Healthy and Efficient Affordable Housing

Highlight Green Homes

December 12 Advocacy Update

Back to Regular Programming

We are back to regular Friday updates!

2014 Advocacy Planning - Chapter Priorities

It was great to see so many chapter volunteers and staff at Greenbuild. Many of you heard about the 2014 Chapter priorities, specifically about Advocacy in 2014, in Philly or prior to that when the Community Advancement team hosted an online forum to role out the priorities in the Fall. 

The 2014 chapter advocacy priority will continue to carry forward USGBC’s seven advocacy campaigns. In addition, USGBC will collaborate with chapters to establish critical infrastructure for our advocacy work in 2015 and beyond. We will provide resources, support and training to help each chapter craft their unique 2015 Chapter Advocacy Plan. We have provided two documents to help chapters move towards this new approach. One of the documents is a tool developed by the Aspen Institute to help organizations do long-term planning and an internal guideline we have put together for chapters.

2014 Monthly Advocacy Call

Apologies for the confusion with this month's advocacy call. In 2014, our monthly calls will be 4pm every 3rd Monday of the Month. However, January's call will be on Monday, January 13th, because the 3rd Monday is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which USGBC observes so the office is closed.

Click to add the calls/webex to your calendar. The calendar invite will include the webex link and call in number.

Twenty Thousandth LEED Certification

Last Thursday, the 20,000th LEED commercial project was certified. It is a LEED 2009 CI project in Knoxville, TN.

100 LEED Certified Schools in Ohio

This past Wednesday, we celebrated with the four Ohio chapters of USGBC, the Ohio School Facilities Commission, and about 80 Ohioans the first 100 LEED certified schools at the Ohio Capitol. Roger Platt, Senior Vice President of Global Policy and Law provided his Master of Ceremony skills during the program to celebrate this milestone.

We are pulling together pictures as we speak, so more to come later. However, if you cannot wait and you are on Twitter, check out #LEEDworksOH and you will see some of the photos tweeted out by attendees and staff. Also, check out The Center for Green Schools Director, Rachel Gutter's, blog post. 

LEED in Motion

We released the third and final installment of its LEED in Motion report series: Impacts and Innovation. The report details key impact areas and results of the thousands of projects that are utilizing the LEED® green building rating system, as well as innovation highlights related to LEED and green building technologies.

USGBC members can download Impacts and Innovation, as well as the first two reports, People and Progress and Places and Policies.

Anti-LEED report from John Scofield

John Scofield from Oberlin College released a paper, last week, on how LEED is ineffective. It is titled, "Efficacy of LEED-certification in reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions for large New York City office buildings."

Chapter Corner

Fayetteville, AR PACE District

USGBC-Arkansas has been working on PACE Districts. The enabling legislation passed in the spring 2013 Legislative Session and now the City of Fayetteville, AR has taken steps to become the first PACE District in the state. More on it from the Fayetteville. Please contact Linda Smith, USGBC-AR for more information.

Madison, WI Benchmarking Ordinance

Sherrie Gruder and Manus McDevitt from Wisconsin Green Building Alliance have been leading a benchmakring effort for Madison, WI. Last week, the ordinance went to the city council and was referred to two committees and scheduled for public hearings next week.

California Energy Efficiency Standards implementation delayed

Per USGBC-CA. "At its December 11, 2013 Business Meeting, the California Energy Commission revised the effective date for the 2013 Building Energy Efficiency Standards (Title 24, Part 1, Chapter 10 and Part 6, and affected provisions in Part 11 [Cal. Green Building Standards Code]) from January 1, 2014 to July 1, 2014." Please contact Dennis Murphy from USGBC-CA for more information.

King County, WA Adopting LEED
King County has adopted a sustainable building ordinance. Ordinance LEED highlight, "Requiring all King County government construction and major renovation projects to strive for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum designation."

Campaigns

Leadership with LEED

Common Ground Around Green Schools

Mainstream Building Benchmarking

Improve Energy Data Access

Build Better Codes

Value Healthy and Efficient Affordable Housing

Highlight Green Homes

Advocacy Update: December 3, 2013

While We Were Away...

It has been a few weeks since this space has been updates. But that doesn't mean we have not been busy, quite the opposite. Ohio, Greenbuild, and turkey eating have taken up all of our time the last three weeks. We will back to our regular schedule next Friday.

#LEEDWorksOH Update

There has not been no official movement from the Ohio Senate on SCR 25. But the Ohio chapter members have been busy mobilizing their members and supporters. Hundreds of call have gone into senate offices and lots of shares of our #LEEDWorksOH petition with their social networks.

Ohioan looking up her state senator.

Also, at Greenbuild, we held an Ohio Happy Hour Huddle in the Exhibit Hall that was attended by over 25 Ohio Greenbuild attendees. They heard brief remarks from Doug Gatlin, USGBC's VP, LEED & Product Management and then started a phone blitz into Ohio Senate offices.

The Happy Hour Huddle also included some social time!

100 LEED certfied schools for Ohio

Next week, December 11th, the four Ohio chapters and USGBC will celebrate the milestone of 100 LEED certified schools in Ohio. Please RSVP if you can join us. The link is below.

Greenbuild

What an amazing week! There is so much to say, but sometimes pictures speak a thousand words. Also, here is the Greenbuild Playlist so you can watch some of the great speakers, like former Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Rick Fedrizzi with former Secretary Clinton

Bon Jovi performing after the keynote speech

Nate Silver, closing plenary speaker: "Shades of probability get lost in translation for most people."

Chapter Corner

South Florida - Keys Branch: In the past month, the City of Key West adopted sustainable building requirements.

Campaigns

Leadership with LEED

Common Ground Around Green Schools

Mainstream Building Benchmarking

Improve Energy Data Access

Build Better Codes

Value Healthy and Efficient Affordable Housing

Highlight Green Homes

November 8, 2013 Update: We're Back!

We are back!

We were unable to pull together a weekly update for you last week because of  legislative action in Ohio.

Ohio

 The legislation we have been anticipating in Ohio came to fruition on Halloween. SCR 25 is a senate concurrent resolution that pushes the State of Ohio to exclude LEED as a building standard for public buildings and for public schools. Even though it is a resolution, there is language in the "Resolved' sections that implies LEED was not properly adopted by the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC), which would make the case for agency rule review, with an eye to repealing the use of LEED to achieve Ohio's goal of energy efficient buildings.

This past week, Doug Widener from the Community Advancement team, Nate Allen from the Center for Green Schools team, and Christina Kuo from Advocacy, along with 12 volunteers from the 4 Ohio chapters made legislative visits to educate lawmakers about the impact of SCR 25 and the success of Ohio's green schools program. We met with the following state senators: Widener, Hite, Coley, Patton, Seitz, Hughes, Schaffer (cosponsor), Lehner, Jones, Manning, Kearney, Oelslager, Schiavoni, Gentile, Taveras, and Bacon. The resolution now sits in Energy and Natural Resources and as of time of publication, it has not been scheduled for a hearing.

We have sent emails and phone calls into the senate offices to ensure the whole senate knows that this resolution is happening and they have the full information. We will have more ways you can get involved later this week. Please contact Christina if you have additional questions.

November Advocacy Call

Please join us for the November advocacy call. We have a special guest, Erin Skene-Pratt, who will talk to you about nonprofit advocacy strategic development and how it can help achieve your organizations overall goals. Here is the link to the Webex or to call in only 1-650-429-3300 code: 752935317#. 

Erin Skene-Pratt

Erin Skene-Pratt is an independent consultant with 15 years experience as a leader and catalyst for program design and implementation in the areas of advocacy, organizational development, and capacity building efforts. Erin provides a strategic outlook on work of the nonprofit sector, and a proven track record of results having assisted thousands of nonprofits to better serve their communities.

Erin is also an affiliate consultant with Public Policy Associates (PPA) providing facilitation services and working with PPA’s clients on training, policy, and communication strategies. As an adjunct faculty member at Grand Valley State University, Erin teaches a graduate level course on nonprofit advocacy and public policy covering the roles of government and nonprofits in serving society and basic advocacy tactics.

Prior to forming Skene-Pratt Consulting in 2009, Erin served as Senior Director of Public Affairs at Michigan Nonprofit Association (MNA). At MNA, Erin crafted curriculum and trained thousands of nonprofits on how to effectively advocate for public policy change and authored the first Michigan-specific how-to-guide on effective advocacy. Erin also successfully developed and implemented MNA’s first statewide public policy agenda for the nonprofit sector, built and mobilized a grassroots network of 2,000 nonprofits, successfully fundraised for MNA’s policy work, developed and staffed a committee to provide input to the Michigan attorney general on charitable matters, formed the first Michigan nonprofit legislative caucus, advocated on policy issues relevant to the nonprofit sector resulting in passage of legislation to enhance fundraising efforts of nonprofits and to increase nonprofit accountability in Michigan, and founded/staffed the Michigan Participation Project to enhance the voter engagement efforts of Michigan’s nonprofits.

Erin holds an MPA from Western University, BAs in Journalism and English from Michigan State University, and a Certificate in Fund Raising Management from The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

Chapter Corner

Thank you to NE Ohio-USGBC, Central Ohio-USGBC, USGBC-Cincinnati, and NW Ohio chapters for all their hard work in helping us with turning out grassroots support at the Ohio capital last week.

Northern California Chapter honored Green Building Super Heroes.

USGBC Gulf Coast honored Tony Richardson, Highlight Green Homes Campaign Co-Chair, for his work in greening the MLS. Congrats Tony!

Greenville Technical College in South Carolina has started to seek bids for architectural and engineering work on its planned enterprise campus, a project that will cost up to $25 million. The building is designed to achieve LEED Silver or Green Globes.

USGBC North Capital Region held a successful Energy Summit on October 30th. They brought together utilities, local government, NGOs,and building owners and managers

Campaigns

Leadership with LEED

Common Ground Around Green Schools

Mainstream Building Benchmarking

Improve Energy Data Access

Build Better Codes

Value Healthy and Efficient Affordable Housing

Highlight Green Homes