Austin Texas

Two weeks ago I attended the annual Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET) Conference in Austin, TX.  In addition to attending lectures by some of the brightest minds in building science and checking out a late night James McMurtry concert at the Continental Club, I got to learn first-hand about “Austin’s Energy Conservation Audit and Disclosure Ordinance”–the first of its kind in the U.S.

About the Ordinance

The Ordinance requires a person selling a single family home (or an apartment building with fewer than 4 units) to get an energy audit and provide a copy of the report to all prospective purchasers.  Homes built within the last 10 years are exempt.  On the other hand, owners of large apartment buildings have to get an audit, irrespective of intent to sell, and post the report within the building to alert renters and prospective tenants of the building’s energy use.

The primary goal behind the Ordinance is to give home buyers and renters complete information, so they can purchase (or rent) the best possible house (i.e. one that is efficient, comfortable and healthy).  On the community level, though, the Ordinance is important as it gets the market thinking about ongoing energy use as part of a property’s value.  

Opposition by Real Estate Agents

Such disclosure ordinances have been widely opposed by real estate agents, as they make it more difficult to sell older, less efficient homes.  Decreasing the pool of “attractive” homes leaves fewer opportunities for agents to turn a quick profit.

Opposition by real estate agents, though, is insignificant when compared with the importance of protecting buyers from getting into homes they can’t afford to carry from month to month.  Just as price and school districts are often guiding requirements in a home buyer’s search, so to should the ability to heat and cool the home throughout the year.  Before making appointments to view homes, buyers should know the energy efficiency of the home compared to its price, since they may be required to do a retrofit or pay significant utility bills.  Early notice would allow buyers to pass on all homes at the top of their price range that are energy hogs, which would sink their monthly budgets.  

Notions of Fairness

But is it unfair to require a seller to pay for the audit when it’s the buyer who will benefit?  Why not treat the audit like a home inspection?  In the absence of an audit subsidy by a state or utility-sponsored program, the seller is best positioned to shoulder the cost of the audit.  Typically running $300 to $500, the price of an audit is fairly insignificant compared to the total sale price of the home.  But to a prospective buyer using energy efficiency as a guiding criterion for their home search, it would be too expensive to purchase an audit for each home they want visit.  Thus, the seller is best positioned to pay for the audit.

Another Arrow for Your Quiver

The key point to take away from this post is that disclosure ordinances are yet another tool that communities can use to reduce energy consumption.  They should be considered alongside other mechanisms including:

• Rebates for Efficiency Upgrades

• Subsidized Audits
• Tax Incentives
• Building Codes
• Contractor Training
• Public Education and Outreach

For more information, check out www.imt.org, which is a great resource for disclosure ordinances.

We noted with interest the references in this article to the overturn of the Morgantown fracking ban; while Spilman was not mentioned explicitly, many readers of this news blog will recall the case and, likewise, the instrumental role that Team Spilman played in representing its client, Northeast Natural Energy. Read on for more.

###

New York Fracking Advocates Say New York Bans Are ‘Kiss of Death’

BLOOMBERG
By Freeman Klopott and Jim Efstathiou Jr.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012

New York (STONY1) would lose any chance of reaping the economic benefits of the shale-gas boom if local governments are allowed to ban drilling through zoning laws, advocates say.

The state sits on the northern edge of the Marcellus Shale, which may hold enough natural gas to supply the U.S. for two decades, according to Terry Engelder, a geosciences professor at Pennsylvania State University. In 2010, New York placed a moratorium on the drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing so state regulators can develop rules. Lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow municipalities to ban the practice, a right several say they already have.

“Giving local governments the power to regulate would be the kiss of death for natural-gas development in New York state,” Tom West, an attorney in Albany who represents Denver- based Anschutz Exploration Corp. and other drilling companies, said in a telephone interview.

U.S. states from Wyoming to West Virginia that sit atop shale formations are cashing in on so-called fracking even as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency studies the effects on drinking water with an eye on possible nationwide regulations. In Ohio, earthquakes that rattled the Youngstown area last year are under review by state officials to see if there’s a link to fracking, which forces millions of gallons of chemically treated water and sand underground to free trapped gas.

[View full article]

###

Drilling Debate Heats Up in W.Va.

THE STATE JOURNAL
By Pam Kasey
Wednesday, June 29, 2011

MORGANTOWN  – The issue of municipalities’ rights to regulate Marcellus shale activity is coming to a head.

“We don’t do this with a lot of gusto,” Morgantown Mayor William Byrne said June 21 as the City Council enacted an ordinance banning hydraulic fracturing of natural gas wells drilled horizontally within a mile outside city limits— essentially a ban on Marcellus wells.

Morgantown did this, he said, because state regulation does not protect cities adequately.

Morgantown’s ordinance will be tested through a lawsuit filed June 23 in Monongalia County Circuit Court by producer Northeast Natural Energy. The company claims it already invested $7 million partially developing two wells that may be shut down by the ordinance.

Meanwhile, though, a special legislative committee will consider whether municipalities can regulate Marcellus activity.

The 10-member committee, with five members from each house appointed in late June, is charged with reconciling competing Senate and House of Delegates bills and any additional measures into a single, large Marcellus bill to pass in special session — possibly as early as August.

The Marcellus bill the Senate passed earlier this year would have pre-empted local ordinances that regulate the “method” of gas operations, though not “the time and the place of operations to protect the health, safety and welfare of the general public.”

Three municipalities so far have passed ordinances, all slightly different, to regulate gas well operations: Lewisburg in March, Wellsburg in May and Morgantown in June.

If local ordinances are pre-empted, what could statewide regulation offer cities instead?

[View Full Article]

Oyez Oyez is also available as an online publishing platform for municipal governments. To date, the municipalities of Saint-Adèle and Sainte-Catherine are participating in the service.

Click here for a video demonstrating Oyez Oyez.

Click here for Ivan Mokanov’s recent post about Oyez Oyez at Slaw.ca, the Canadian legal blog.

Unblown leaves in a bed of lamb's ear in Irvington-on-Hudson, NY

There is probably no bigger controversy raging in the letters to the editor of my community newspaper, The Rivertowns Enterprise, than the debate over leaf blowers. Maybe deer culling, but we’ll get to that in a future post. Irate citizens have been writing in for years, complaining as angrily as possible about the noise and the pollution caused by gas-powered leaf blowers. Many municipalities, including ours, have enacted leaf-blower bans that are in effect all season except during spring and fall clean-up weeks. Well, it’s peak fall clean-up time now, and a drive around Irvington yesterday found landscape crews blowing every last leaf off just about every lawn. But that’s not how they do it everywhere.

Leaves are allowed to remain in the display beds in the Birmingham (AL) Botanical Garden

I just returned from a trip to Birmingham, AL, where they don’t clean up as meticulously as we’re conditioned to do in the Northeast. I would have hosed and raked, I thought as I began to tour a stylish private garden—where leaves were on the patios, in the flower beds, and in the containers. But after a few minutes I realized that the leaves look beautiful, natural, appropriate, and real. Why not leave them there?

Leaves among the mondo grass in a beautifully designed private garden in Birmingham

Leaves add colorful visual interest to a pondside

Pine needles are used as mulch all over the South, where here they mix with fallen leaves

Use Leaves as Mulch in Beds and Borders. Need mulch? Leaves are plentiful, attractive, and free. For several years I’ve been instructing our lawn guys to rake the leaves into the beds, not bag them and take them away. A four-inch layer protects the roots of perennials and shrubs when the ground freezes and thaws. The leaves can be removed in the spring.

Leaves in a rock garden across the street from our house

The Exacto Earthmaker

Compost Your Leaves. What doesn’t go in the beds can go in the compost bin. When my husband and I got married in 1992, a friend gave us a compost bin as a wedding-housewarming present. It wasn’t the most glamorous gift, but it might be the most useful and long-lasting. Since then, we’ve bought two more bins, and use them to compost our vegetable and fruit trimmings, coffee grounds, eggshells, grass clippings—and every leaf that will fit in. My master-composter husband swears by the Exacto Trading EARTH Earthmaker, which sifts the finer particles into lower bins that can be removed easily. The compost then goes into potting mix for containers and top-dresses the beds every spring.

Nick Pinsker of Enviro-Citizen.org explains: “Composting is the cheapest and best means of yard cleanup. It keeps fall foliage and food residuals—which together constitute 23 percent of the U.S. waste stream—out of landfills. Each season a single tree can shed up to 600 pounds of leaves. Composting can return more than 70% of the nutrients back into the ground and greatly reduce the need for chemical fertilizers.”

Mow Leaves into Your Lawn.  Many people in our community—yours, too?—are asking their lawn services to switch to mulching mowers, which chop up dry leaves and grass clippings and leave them in the lawn as fertilizer. According to hometips.com, mulching mowers are like food processors for lawns. They have a special blade and an enclosed deck that minces the clippings and leaves into small particles before depositing them back deep into the turf, where they decompose in a few days. The result, if conditions are right and the mower is well designed, is a clean appearance without unsightly clumps. Prof. Thomas A. Nikolai of Michigan State University concurs. Over several years, his team has conducted three experiments to examine the feasibility of mulching tree leaves into existing turfgrass canopies. As reported in an article in the professional journal Grounds Maintenance, they found several significant benefits; grass quality increased; less broadleaf weed growth; and grass plants grown had greater percentages of carbon and nitrogen.

There are a number of brands of mulching mowers available at Sears, Home Depot, etc. How well these consumer models (as opposed to the professional models tested by the Michigan team) mulch leaves, and not just grass clippings, is being debated. So some experts, like Earthshare, recommend ordinary hand-powered mowers, which have the least environmental impact and apparently can do a pretty good job of chopping up the leaves.

Please leave comments with your mower experiences and we’ll do a follow-up. In the meantime, I’m not going to be fastidious this year. As the photos in this post illustrate, leaves can be beautiful.

Eco-friendly family on the (cleaned-up) lawn of the Hastings-on-Hudson Public Library wishes you Happy Halloween

I’m currently verifying which formats the metadata and full text of legislation are provided in.

This development may be of interest to those participating in the Law.gov legal open government data project.

HT @SarahSchacht.