Pennsylvania House Passes New Environmental and Energy Building Standards Act

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives is steering Pennsylvania toward achieving “green” standards, visible in the recent passing of a bill that will require certain state-funded “major facility projects” to comply with energy and environmental building standards. House Bill 444, the “High Performance State-Funded Building Standards Act,” was passed by a vote of 180-17 on July 13. The bill has been referred to the Pennsylvania Senate’s Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, and the Senate will likely consider it during the upcoming session.

The declared purposes of the bill include, among others, “to promote effective energy and environmental standards for construction, rehabilitation and maintenance of buildings,” “to reduce this Commonwealth’s [Pennsylvania’s] dependence upon imported sources of energy through buildings that conserve energy and utilize local and renewable energy sources,” and “to improve this Commonwealth’s capacity to design, build and operate high-performance buildings and, in doing so, to create new jobs and contribute to economic growth.”

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