Opinion: State bill pausing new building codes risks climate change progress

With the devastating Los Angeles blazes still fresh in memory cities across the Bay Area region are progressing plans to lower the climate-heating emissions that are fanning the flames But a dangerous new bill now threatens this progress AB while purporting to address the fallout from this year s fires could truly increase the exposure of future fires and pause local progress to address other atmosphere disasters This week the provisions of AB were put on the fast track for approval as state leaders shifted the contents of the bill into a budget trailer bill a process that will make it eligible for approval by midnight Monday While chosen narrow exceptions were added the measure would still ban bulk local governments from adopting stronger building codes that promote power efficiency until This severely limits improvements for six years even as weather disasters intensify and innovation advances and circumvents local control and the normal legislative process in the state Senate We know firsthand how much of a mistake this would be In San Jose and Palo Alto we proved that smart building codes are one of our state s best tools for increasing state resilience cutting impurity lowering vigor bills and protecting inhabitants vitality In the San Jose and Palo Alto city councils approved codes that cut improvement costs by going all-in on electrification while cutting back on expensive and often unnecessary gas hookups This combined with additional incentives for solar panels and electric car chargers in San Jose and for home appliances in Palo Alto is creating cleaner air and reducing emissions all without current the bank Thousands of Palo Alto and San Jose residents now enjoy lower resource costs and healthier air quality thanks to their all-electric homes Across the state cities have followed the lead of San Jose and Palo Alto by crafting building codes that are tailored to each district s requirements Local challenges such as sea level rise housing shortages or wildfire risks are often best addressed with locally-crafted solutions The proposed measure in the budget trailer bill puts this progress at peril Related Articles California approves greater part vital environmental law rollbacks in decades Letters Colleges runaway spending makes tuition unaffordable Letters Pentagon can t strip Harvey Milk from our memories Will California scale back its core environmental protection law to build more housing Despite billion state budget shortfall Newsom and California Dems defer major spending cuts Proponents claim it will help fire casualties rebuild affordably The evidence says otherwise Multiple studies have substantiated that there is no clear correlation between capacity code updates and rising housing prices If anything pausing code updates would worsen California s affordability predicament New strength standards have saved Californians more than billion in utility costs over the past years and the next update is expected to save another billion Cities we represent and others across California deserve to benefit from these proven savings but now they liability getting stuck with outdated energy-wasting appliances Energy-efficient homes aren t just cheaper to live in they are also cheaper to build As we saw from our successes in our cities building with efficient electric appliances can save up to per unit by eliminating the need for gas line infrastructure The building code pause would also pause this commonsense progress taking control away from local cities without making housing any more affordable Here s the cruel irony this wildfire recovery option could make future fires worse By blocking local clean capacity policies that reduce climate-warming corruption and stripping communities of the flexibility to update codes based on advances in machinery the proposed change leaves us more vulnerable to the next mishap Lawmakers should be empowering communities to be agile in response to new technologies and to explore localized solutions that promote efficiency and affordability Cutting impurity and facilitating housing construction can co-exist David Cohen is a San Jose city councilmember and Vicki Veenker is Palo Alto s vice mayor They wrote this commentary for CalMatters