The Warren-Alquist State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Act requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) to adopt building design and construction standards and energy and water conservation standards for new residential and nonresidential buildings to reduce the wasteful, uneconomic, inefficient, or unnecessary consumption of energy, including energy associated with the use of water. The act requires those standards to be cost effective when taken in their entirety and when amortized over the economic life of the structure compared with historic practice.
This bill would require the Energy Commission, by January 1, 2020, to establish a plan to achieve the goal that all new residential and nonresidential buildings built on or after January 1, 2030, to be zero-emission buildings, as
defined, and to develop a strategy to achieve a reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gases from the state’s residential and nonresidential building stock of 50% below 1990 levels by January 1, 2030. The bill would require the Energy Commission, by January 1, 2020, to develop standards for use by electrical corporations, gas corporations, local publicly owned electric utilities, and local publicly owned gas utilities for reporting the emissions of greenhouse gases associated with the supply of energy to their customers, on a geographic area basis. The bill would require those utilities to report those emissions to the Energy Commission and would require the Energy Commission to make those reports publicly available. By requiring local publicly owned electric and gas utilities to submit this report, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts
for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.