In This Issue:

• ZERO NET ENERGY/SOLAR MANDATE FOR RESIDENTIAL STOPPED

• ZERO NET ENERGY/SOLAR AND BEYOND FOR COMMERCIAL AMENDED

• GREEN BUILDING/ENERGY MANDATE UPDATE

• STATE BUDGET RHETORIC HEATING UP

• CEQA/AB 32 RECOMMENDED GUIDELINES RLEASED

• SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN PRO-UNION STATUTE IN CALIFORNIA

• MEAL PERIOD LAWSUIT CRISIS NEEDS COMPLETE SOLUTION

• CBPA 2008 CALENDAR

ZERO NET ENERGY/SOLAR MANDATE FOR RESIDENTIAL STOPPED

AB 2112 (Saldana; D-San Diego) “Zero Net Energy” for residential. A bill that would severely hinder residential development by requiring all new buildings to generate 50% of used power onsite using “sustainable” technology was stopped this week by the Senate Transportation and Housing. The idea, which would be technically impossible for most large multi-residential projects and not very cost effective for most other types of residences, was “held” in committee due to a number of concerns about the bill’s impact.
 

ZERO NET ENERGY/SOLAR AND BEYOND FOR COMMERCIAL AMENDED

AB 1065 (Lieber; D-Mountain View) A bill that mandates all commercial and residential development use 50% less energy by 2020 and 80% less energy by 2030 was heavily amended in committee to address concerns of a broad range of groups, including CBPA, ICSC, NAIOP, BOMA California, CalChamber, CBIA, and several others. Chief among the concerns are the impact the mandate would have on affordable housing and whether such quantum leaps in energy reduction were even technically possible. We are also very concerned that such a policy is a de facto solar mandate, which has many unresolved policy questions. In committee, the author committed to adjusting the bill to conform to the Title 24 regulatory process and to severely scale back the energy reduction mandate to more realistic levels. One lingering concern is the issue of “plug-load,” and whether or not tenant energy usage would count against the building’s overall load. We have long argued that a building owner/manager has very little to no ability to suppress tenant energy use and should not be held solely responsible for reducing non-Title 24 regulated energy. The bill is scheduled to be heard again next week, though amendments are still not available for review.
 

GREEN BUILDING/ENERGY MANDATE UPDATE

* AB 35 (Ruskin; D-Palo Alto) Mandates LEED Gold standard for new state building construction and tenant improvements. Position: Oppose. Status: Bill was vetoed by the Governor.

* AB 888 (Lieu; D-Torrance) Mandates LEED Gold standard for new commercial construction and tenant improvements. Position: Oppose. Status: Bill was vetoed by the Governor.

* AB 1058 (Laird; D-Santa Cruz) Mandates LEED Gold standard for new residential construction. Position: Oppose. Status: Bill was vetoed by the Governor.

* AB 1065 (Lieber) 20/50/80% Energy Reduction Mandates on Commercial and Residential. Position: Pending. Status: Bill was significantly amended in Senate Transportation and Housing and we await new language.

* AB 2030 (Lieu; D-Torrance) Mandates Zero Net Energy for Commercial. Position: Oppose. Status: Bill died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee

* AB 2112 (Saldana; D-San Diego) Mandates Zero Net Energy for Residential. Position: Oppose. Status: Bill died in the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee.

* AB 2144 (Smyth; R-Santa Clarita) Authorize a voluntary local program to recognize “green” buildings that exceed standards set forth in the state building code. Position: Support. Status: Bill died in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee.

* AB 2678 (Núñez; D-Los Angeles) Directs the CEC to set up a program to address the need to help increase energy efficiency in pre-Title 24 buildings. Position: Support. Status: Moving to Senate Appropriations Committee.

* AB 2693 (Hancock) Specifically allows locals to adopt third party green building certification programs (such as LEED) as local mandates supplanting Title 24. Position: Pending. Status: Bill was significantly amended in Senate Transportation and Housing and we await new language.

* AB 2961 (Núñez; D-Los Angeles) Sets green building and energy efficiency standards for state buildings based on a review of several national third party certification programs including Green Globes and LEED. Position: Support. Status: Bill died in the Senate Energy Committee.

* SB 1473 (Calderon) Green building regulatory process, which clarifies state agency responsibility for promulgating green codes and assesses a fee on development to implement. Position: Support. Status: Moving to Assembly Natural Resources Committee.

* SB 1670 (Kehoe; D-San Diego) Proposed $2 billion bond proposition to provide funds to increase the energy efficiency of qualified state-owned and long-term leased buildings. Position: Support. Status: Will be heard next week in Assembly Natural Resources Committee.
 

STATE BUDGET RHETORIC HEATING UP

Another state budget misses the Constitutional deadline for passage. Yawn. We have come to expect squabbling and disagreement throughout the Summer months in Sacramento as some folks in power try to spend as much of your hard earned cash as possible… and then borrow against your good credit to spend some more.

Assembly Democrats went on the offensive Wednesday accusing the Republicans in both houses of attempting to hold up the budget for issues completely unrelated to the budget (click here for the news release). Senate Republicans shot right back outlining dozens of examples of Democrat-backed issues and bills previously rejected by the Legislature or the Governor, which are also curiously unrelated to the budget.

A prime example used by the Republicans to show policy issues in the budget is the green buildings mandates that would codify LEED Silver into the state’s building code. This policy was pushed last year in three different measures (AB 35/AB 888/AB 1058; see above), which were all vetoed by the Governor last year. As well, this issue was part of the budget stalemate last Summer and was ultimately rejected as a budget item. This clearly is outside the budget process but keeps getting slipped into the process.

Earlier this week, Senator Bob Dutton (R-Inland Empire) sent a letter in response to a story published in the Los Angeles Times where Democrats accused Republican lawmakers of using the budget to rollback protections for California families. Click here for the letter.

Senator Dutton pointed out that in the Budget Conference Committee alone there are 73 different policy bills calling for “trailer bill language” that will be used to push forward the Democrats’ agenda without a policy hearing.

Its 103 degrees outside of the Capitol today… and its starting to boil on the inside.
 

CEQA/AB 32 RECOMMENDED GUIDELINES RLEASED

The Office of Planning and Research (OPR) pursuant to SB 97 has transmitted their recommendations of how the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and AB 32, California’s landmark climate change law, will interface in the future. The Technical Advisory called CEQA AND CLIMATE CHANGE: Addressing Climate Change through California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Review can be read by clicking the title.

The Advisory includes OPR's recommended approach for lead agencies performing climate change analyses for projects which generate Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG), as well as a list of technical resources and modeling tools for estimating GHG emissions, and examples of GHG reduction measures.

The Advisory is general in nature. Of particular interest, the Advisory indicates each lead agency will have to develop its own approach to evaluating GHG emissions. It does not propose a particular method for evaluating the GHG emissions generated by a project, nor does it recommend the use of a particular threshold of significance for evaluating a project's cumulative impacts due to GHG emissions.

The Advisory states that OPR hopes to deliver proposed CEQA Guidelines concerning the evaluation of climate change (guidelines it was directed to prepare by AB 97) as early as January 2009.
 

SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN PRO-UNION STATUTE IN CALIFORNIA

As a result of today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Chamber of Commerce of the United States et al. v. Brown et al., states may no longer restrict employers’ rights to communicate with their employees about unionization. The decision will ripple through the legal system and likely result in the invalidation of similar legislation in other states.

The Court rejected California’s attempt to place the state’s thumb on the scale in the unionization debate. California Assembly Bill 1889 (Cedillo; D-Los Angeles), enacted in 2000 in response to union lobbying efforts, expressly prohibited employers from using state grant and program funds to “assist, promote, or deter union organizing.” The Court recognized that a state has a legitimate interest in ensuring that its funds are spent in accordance with the purposes for which they were appropriated. However, the Court found that the true purpose of AB 1889 was to silence employer speech about unions by subjecting employers to burdensome segregated accounting systems, onerous recordkeeping requirements, treble damages, private rights of actions and attorney’s fees. The law included significant pro-union exceptions to its spending ban, including allowing the use of state funds to circumvent secret-ballot elections by entering into voluntary recognition agreements (otherwise known as card-check or “neutrality” agreements) with a union.
 

MEAL PERIOD LAWSUIT CRISIS NEEDS COMPLETE SOLUTION

The California Chamber of Commerce is continuing to urge lawmakers to insist on a comprehensive solution to the meal period litigation crisis. Read more about what the CalChamber is doing for California businesses on this issue by clicking here.
 

CBPA 2008 CALENDAR

OCTOBER 23--

CBPA Board Meeting
The Irvine Company, Newport Beach

CBPA Industry Awards Dinner
Island Hotel, Newport Beach