Lost opportunities: Modeling commercial building energy code adoption in the United States

Nelson, Hal T.

doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2012.05.033

Cited by 14 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…We also considered incorporating a variable for legislative professionalism, as discussed by Ringquist () and Squire (), or for administrative capacity (Nelson, . However, we are concerned that either measure might introduce confusion as to the unit of analysis, as the former assesses state legislatures according to a shifting standard set by Congress at a national level, while the latter is primarily concerned with individual officials, not state‐level institutions.…”

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confidence: 99%

Regulatory Stringency and Policy Drivers: A Reassessment of Renewable Portfolio Standards

Carley¹,

Miller²

2012

Policy Studies Journal

105

110

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Renewable energy policy has far-reaching implications for national and international economic, environmental, and political sustainability, but thus far within the United States it has been almost entirely the province of state governments. This article examines the factors motivating state-level policymakers to adopt different forms of a renewable portfolio standard (RPS), highlighting the distinction between degrees of policy stringency, ranging from entirely voluntary participation to rigorous and strictly enforced targets. In the process we introduce a new metric for assessing stringency, more precise and reliable than the various proxies used previously, and analyze its relationship to drivers of policy adoption. We find that policies of different stringencies are motivated by systematically different underlying factors. State-level citizen political ideology is a significant predictor of RPS policy adoption, particularly for "voluntary" and "weak" policy designs. "Strong" policy designs, on the other hand, are best predicted by ideology at the government level, i.e., the degree of institutional liberalism. These findings may inform current implementation and program evaluation efforts, and potentially point the way toward more effective policy choices if and when an RPS moves forward on the national policy agenda, while the stringency metric central to this analysis can be of use to other policy scholars concerned with topics both within and beyond the realm of energy policy.

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confidence: 99%

Regulatory Stringency and Policy Drivers: A Reassessment of Renewable Portfolio Standards

Carley¹,

Miller²

2012

Policy Studies Journal

105

110

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Across countries, duration models have been applied to model the adoption of air emission standards (Biesenbender & Tosun, 2014) and renewable energy policies (Stadelmann & Castro, 2014;Jenner, et al, 2012). At the state-level, studies have looked at adoption of environmental audit initiatives (Stafford 2006), commercial building energy codes (Nelson, 2012), renewable portfolio standards and other green electricity policies (Lee, Kim, & Lee, 2016;Lyon & Yin, 2010). Among cities and municipalities, duration models have been used to look at restrictions on the pornography industry (Jones & Branton, 2005), local option sales taxes (Sjoquist, et al, 2007), and city-level contracts for water management (González-Gómez & Guardiola 2009).…”

Section: Impacts Of Local Context On Policy Adoptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What prompts the adoption of car restriction policies among Chinese cities

Wang

Moody

Zhao

2020

International Journal of Sustainable Transportation

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Facing rapid motorization, many Chinese municipalities are implementing policies that restrict car ownership or use. However, there is significant variation in terms of which cities adopt these policies and when. This research systematically investigates what factors prompt local governments in China to adopt these car restriction policies. We collect a database of car restriction policies as well as economic, demographic, land use, and transportation indicators for 287 Chinese municipalities from 2001 to 2014. We adopt a mixed methods approach that combines a qualitative investigation of stated objectives and legislative precedent within policy documents with a quantitative duration model of policy adoption. We find that the adoption of comprehensive car ownership and use restriction policies across Chinese cities primarily responds to local air pollution and secondarily to car ownership and congestion. Policy adoption additionally responds to local subway line constructions. Local economic power and population size do not effectively explain policy adoption. Idiosyncratic effects at provincial or city levels are important, although the underlying mechanisms by which these network effects manifest remain unclear. Broadly, our findings suggest that problem solving and network effects both contribute to the adoption of car restriction policies across China's cities and that the legal policy documents reliably illustrate the motivations of these policies.

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“…One of the key roles of the government in facilitating energy efficiency policies like building codes is to provide stakeholders with information DOE and the state energy offices could facilitate the establishment of building code compliance assistance programs at the state and local level to help developers and builders analyze and comprehend the code, train code officials, and inspectors to oversee the code compliance, provide information, and training opportunities to parties involved in the building industry, and engage utilities to promote the adoption and compliance of codes. DOE's Building Energy Code Program Resource Center is a one‐stop shop providing information about the latest trend in building code compliance through information displays, webinars, and workshops.…”

Section: Global Experience With Building Energy Codesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mandating better buildings: a global review of building codes and prospects for improvement in the United States

Sun

Brown

Cox³

et al. 2015

WIREs Energy & Environment

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This paper provides a global overview of the design, implementation, and evolution of building energy codes. Reflecting alternative policy goals, building energy codes differ significantly across the United States, the European Union, and China. This review uncovers numerous innovative practices including greenhouse gas emissions caps per square meter of building space, energy performance certificates with retrofit recommendations, and inclusion of renewable energy to achieve 'nearly zero-energy buildings'. These innovations motivated an assessment of an aggressive commercial building code applied to all US states, requiring both new construction and buildings with major modifications to comply with the latest version of the ASHRAE 90.1 Standards. Using the National Energy Modeling System (NEMS), we estimate that by 2035, such building codes in the United States could reduce energy for space heating, cooling, water heating, and lighting in commercial buildings by 16%, 15%, 20%, and 5%, respectively. Impacts on different fuels and building types, energy rates and bills as well as pollution emission reductions are also examined. decade, growing by 37.5 million m 2 . 2 With the bulk of this expansion anticipated to occur in developing countries, building-related policies will be important in managing future energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) will have a construction rate of about 1% annually. Meanwhile, the building stock in major non-OECD countries is expected to expand 5-10% annually over the next two decades. 3 Commercial buildings are increasing in relative importance, representing a larger share of floor space and energy consumption in the world. 2 In OECD countries, these buildings consumed about 32.2% of total electricity and 13.4% of total primary energy in 2012. 4 While commercial buildings' share of total energy consumption is relatively small in China today (representing only 5.3% of its electricity 188

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Lost opportunities: Modeling commercial building energy code adoption in the United States

Cited by 14 publications

References 29 publications

Regulatory Stringency and Policy Drivers: A Reassessment of Renewable Portfolio Standards

Regulatory Stringency and Policy Drivers: A Reassessment of Renewable Portfolio Standards

What prompts the adoption of car restriction policies among Chinese cities

Mandating better buildings: a global review of building codes and prospects for improvement in the United States

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