“The California Building Industry Association (CBIA) recently announced that they would support a series of executive orders established by the Schwarzenegger Administration that outlines a series of “green building programs” for state-owned buildings and the commercial sector.

The Administration is sponsoring a legislative proposal which would:

• Specify that the Building Standards Commission (BSC) shall oversee the development of voluntary green building guidelines for residential and non-residential buildings and that the individual components of the guidelines be produced by appropriately authorized state agencies;
• Ensure that the voluntary guidelines are compatible and do not conflict with existing building standards contained in the California Building Code and that they meet the same administrative “nine-point criteria” that the BSC applies to the adoption of mandatory building standards (i.e. cost impact, etc.)
• Direct BSC to publish the guidelines as a stand-alone “Green Building Guideline Manual”, separate from the California Building Code;
• Establish a task force of local government and industry representatives who would develop a list of potential incentives for consideration by local government in promoting the voluntary application of the green building guidelines.”