Incoming mail on the Energy Code

Posted on by
Reply

I received an email from an energy businesswoman @ energyinspectors.com this weekend:

Comments: Dear Councilman Beers,
You have an upcoming bill 2013-24 to vote on June 19th. I have been to all of the meetings and debates on this bill and I am not sure why we even have this bill up for a vote. It comes down to one business that this bill was created for and was affected. The IECC 2009 code has an exemption clause in the bill that this business could have used. The owner hired bad contractors and AP’s that took him for a ride with his expenses not the IECC 2009 code. The code was not the cause of his excessive expense. Nor did the code make Trivoli put in tinted windows! One other key factor is the fact the you are a partner with this business owner on another project DOWNTOWN so doesn’t it seem odd that he is making a bill for his own use and benefit? There is never a time in any situation where going backwards is in the best interest for anyone. You have the City of Las Vegas striving to be the leader in LEED projects and sustainability to save water and electricity, then you are working this other angle to go backwards? I would hope that you will not support this bill, the bill already has avenues for exemption there isn’t a need for the change. It is time decisions are made for the right reason and for the people of Las Vegas not for your personal benefit. Thank you for your time! Jodie Date: 6/14/2013 10:38:40 AM

I wrote back:

Thanks for writing.

Interesting. I see your points, but from a different perspective.

George Harris won’t benefit from the passage of this ordinance. The “International Energy Code” has already wreaked its full havoc on his investors’ last project downtown. Mandating an investment that will never be returned in energy cost savings is the worst possible outcome for Governance. And it can’t be undone. That damage is done.

Only future projects will be impacted by this change. If a group led by Harris (or Tony Hsieh, or Nevada Legal Services, or you, or whatever downtown property owner you want to name) moves forward with a new project refurbishing an old commercial building, none will benefit more than any other. If everyone benefits, that’s actually the goal of government policy.

I don’t understand how this ordinance would create an inequity in the rental market, either. To renters, the “nut” is the sum of all costs to occupy a commercial space. Consumers consider the sum of rent and energy costs (and a bunch of other costs) as the figure they base their business decisions on. Thus, spaces with higher energy costs carry lower rent, punishing energy wasting property owners. That’s why almost all investors take all reasonable steps to build energy conservative spaces, and did long before this code was adopted.

Sustainability is everyone’s goal here, Ms. Smith. Nobody is interested in wasting energy, willy-nilly. But sustainability must consider livability. And it doesn’t matter if it’s an error within the “International Energy Code” or one with the way we’ve implemented it, that caused the problem. The fix is to pull back, regroup, and figure out what’s broken. To me, that’s not backward. That’s smart.

Another Interesting Climate Article

Posted on by
1

Some research reported this week supporting that climate warming makes rainfall increase while climate cooling makes a region drier.

A striking pattern emerged: Over long timescales of multiple decades and centuries, all three monsoons behaved similarly. Warm temperatures made the monsoons wetter while cold temperatures dried them out. During an extended cold period known as the Little Ice Age, for instance, the entire Northern Hemisphere appears to have suffered a “superdrought” that lasted from 1350 to 1650, the team found.

Scientists Debunk Key Carbon Source Theory

Posted on by
2

Earth may be warming. The scientific record is clear that most parts of the earth have been through warming – and cooling – stages over the course of time. One theory – the Government is not acting on this one – is that this warming/cooling cycle over history will continue, likely because something about climate warming causes cooling, and something about climate cooling causes warming. The other theory – this is the one the Government has been spending a lot of money promoting – is that climate warming, underway globally at this time, has gotten hotter faster, so it will continue to get hotter faster until we burn up.

A key sub-theory of the Government’s current theory is that a warming climate will cause the release of massive amounts of carbon molecules (greenhouse gasses) from the tundra. New research says that doesn’t appear to be true:

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/350415/description/News_in_Brief_Warming_may_not_release_Arctic_carbon

The call to human action to stop infinite global warming is why city governments got in the business of attempting to regulate people’s carbon footprint, expanding municipal interest, for the first time, beyond the safety of human-constructed spaces and objects.

You would expect the call to action to be taken up by highly trained experts on energy consumption, generation, and transmission – engineers. Instead, the architects and designers jumped forward to claim ownership of this highly technical set of standards, and found the mandates a bonanza of enhanced fees.

Nor did municipal governments allocate big bucks to hire engineers and scientists to implement. They relied on their existing building and safety staffs to police the designers.

We all agree that sustainability is important. But differences of opinion arise between builders, owners, architects and city regulators as to what all that bureaucratic, technocratic language in the code actually means. The result is that the 2009 IECC Energy Code isn’t working. Advocates promise that the Energy Code won’t force anybody to spend money that they won’t get back through energy bill savings in longer than ten years. In fact, we now have stories about how it resulted in a rehabilitated business being forced to spend money that it will likely never recover through power bill savings.

Lake Powell

Posted on by
Reply

They’re digging the Castle Rock cut deeper at Lake Powell, which will save untold thousands of gallons of gasoline smoke per year.

Some environmentalists oppose the excavation because they believe a changing climate and excess demand for water will eventually drain Lake Powell into a hiker’s paradise.

This seems an extreme perspective to me. To prioritize the eventual drainage of Lake Powell above the emissions of boats burning thousands of gallons of gas would be an error.

It’s kind of like when the Sierra Club sued to stop the widening of US-95.

The Parable Of The Broken Window

Posted on by
1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Government does stuff over alot, it seems. Ranging from tearing out curbs and replacing them with different curbs (to comply with ADA) to busting out windows and replacing them with triple-paned tinted glass (to comply with the 2009 Energy Code) it seems like Government’s always replacing something.

It’s one thing to argue society benefits (by increasing handicapped access to the world, in the case of ADA compliance). But when politicians claim separate benefit because this activity “created jobs” – well, they haven’t learned the Parable of the Broken Window. It explains, quite clearly, why recovering from accidents and catastrophes, and other replacements of capital assets, create net loss (not considering any specific societal goal served by the activity).

Iceland steps away from One Government

Posted on by
Reply

Centre-right opposition parties in Iceland are set for a return to power with all the votes counted after Saturday’s parliamentary election.

Voters in Iceland have turned sharply away from the direction they set in 2008, rejecting the EU, extreme green, and the idea of paying back foreign-held debt at the expense of Icelanders’ own paychecks. I found Iceland and its political thought intriguing ever since I read David Friedman’s book several years ago. Here is Friedman’s website.

Should taxpayers guarantee people’s mortgage in order to stimulate the economy?

Link

1

From today’s Washington Post:

Obama pledged in his State of the Union address to do more to make sure more Americans can enjoy the benefits of the housing recovery, but critics say encouraging banks to lend as broadly as the administration hopes will sow the seeds of another housing disaster and endanger taxpayer dollars.

Public Art

Posted on by
2

Last week, I learned that a City Ordinance requires 1% be added to any construction (capital) spending for “public art”. The next day, I requested a new ordinance to repeal this existing ordinance. My fellow Council member Bob Coffin noted that I might have stirred a sleeping giant with my request, and predicted the Council would hear from many citizens supporting the City’s continued investment in the works of favored local artists (although the artist featured in this photo lives in Denver).

Dear Sleeping Giant:

Personally and philosophically, I believe art is far too much in the eye of the beholder to allow some people to spend other people’s money on it. Cities should promote arts by offering classes to teach citizens to paint, sing, dance, write, sculpt, quilt, sew, design, pluck, drum and strum, but not by building a collection of favored artists’ art.

But it was not from this personal philosophy that I requested the repeal of this 2003 self-mandate, and it is my hope that the coming Council discussion on our mandate does not get bogged down in any of our philosophies.

My proposal is simply fiscal: While the “C-tax” is up, property tax is down and total revenue is flat. One of our unions just voted down a tiny raise, wanting more. The Sheriff says if the Legislature doesn’t raise the sales tax again (it last bumped the rate, by a quarter cent, four years ago as We had very narrowly (52%) voted back in 2004, but it kept the money in the state treasury instead of spending it on more cops) then the City of Las Vegas will have to lay off about a hundred people midyear.

With that in mind, I do not think it is wise or prudent public policy to put a decision to fund public art on auto-pilot. It needs to be deliberated and discussed in the coming budget cycles, soberly, prioritized along with all of the City’s responsibilities.