Three conservation organizations have sued the federal government to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to require maximum achievable

reductions in mercury and other toxic air pollutants emitted by coal- and oil-fired power plants. Under the Clean Air Act, EPA’s deadline for issuing these standards was December 20, 2002. The suit comes as EPA closes its public comment period on a cap-and-trade plan to limit mercury and nickel emissions. EPA’s proposal, according to the plaintiffs, does not comply with the Clean Air Act. The lawsuit was brought against the EPA by the Izaak Walton League of America, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Natural Resources Council of Maine; it was filed April 28, 2004 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. “Our lawsuit simply asks the court to require the Bush administration to obey the law,” said Jon Hinck, toxics project director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine. Details are online at www.nwf.org.

On Earth Day, April 22, Connecticut governor John Rowland signed Executive Order 32,

requiring state facilities to use 20% renewable power by 2010, 50% renewable power by 2020, and 100% renewable power by 2050. “With my order today, we can begin to clean our air, improve the health of our children, and ensure our long-term energy security,” he said.

The City of Santa Monica Green Building Program has announced a

grant program to encourage green building in the private sector. The City offers a grant for any building certified under the LEED^® Rating System for New Construction—$20,000 for each LEED Certified building, $25,000 for Silver, $30,000 for Gold, and $35,000 for Platinum. The City is also offering Innovative Technology Grants for both energy-efficient systems and stormwater runoff mitigation measures. These grants will cover 50% of each system’s cost, up to $5,000, for all building types. Details are online at greenbuildings.santa-monica.org/mainpages/whatsnew.htm.

Citrus Elementary School in Ocoee, Florida has become the nation’s first school to publish an

online “Utility Report Card,” which tracks and evaluates the school’s electricity consumption. A joint effort of the U.S. Department of Energy, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Orange County public school system, the Walt Disney World Company, and others, the initiative is intended to help schools reduce their utility bills by saving energy, and to teach young people about efficiency strategies and the cost of energy. View it online at www.utilityreportcards.com.

Smart growth policies are good for construction jobs, according to a study published by Good Jobs First, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center promoting best practices in economic development. The report, “The Jobs are Back in Town: Urban Smart Growth and Construction Employment,” counters the assumption that “smart growth equals no growth,” and documents how

smart growth creates more jobs than sprawl does for workers who build residential and commercial structures as well as transportation infrastructure. The full report can be downloaded from www.goodjobsfirst.org.

Scientific Certification Systems, Inc.has released an

Indoor Air Quality Performance certification program for interior products. The program is designed to demonstrate product conformance with the indoor emissions limits associated with California’s Section 01350 specification, as well as emission criteria in the LEED

^® Rating System and international standards for environmental labeling. This new certification program is likely to compete with the Greenguard™ Certification Program, which until now was the only certification program of its kind in the U.S. (see

EBN

Vol. 12, No. 10). To support the certification program, SCS also released a Standard describing its approved protocol for the testing of VOC emissions in small-scale environmental chambers. See www.scscertified.com/iaq/ for details.

David Nelson, AIA, IALD, after 11 years with Clanton & Associates in Boulder, Colorado, has formed his own company,

David Nelson & Associates, LLC. Nelson is an architect and a highly respected lighting designer; he has a bachelor of science degree in architectural engineering from the University of Colorado and a master’s in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to joining Clanton & Associates, he worked for several years with Lam Partners in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He serves on the AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) Advisory Group and the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America’s Sustainable Design Recommended Practice Committee. He is a LEED

^® accredited professional and has participated on design teams for numerous LEED-certified projects. Nelson can be reached at 303-926-9829 or by e-mail at dnadesign@comcast.net. A Web site is forthcoming.

Karl Bren has left the Virginia Housing Development Authority to form his own consulting firm,

GreenVisions Consulting. Bren has been a leading advocate of green building and sustainable development in Virginia since the early 1990s, when he founded the Virginia Housing and the Environment Network (VaHEN). In his new role, he will consult and conduct training on green building and sustainable development, focusing on affordable housing and community development. Bren can be reached at 804-288-2348 or through his Web site, www.green-visions.com (which was not yet operational at press time).

Catherine Shawn, an energetic and inspiring advocate of green building and director of the highly regarded High Performance Buildings Salon lecture series held throughout New York State, died of breast cancer on April 5, 2004. Shawn was the creator of the Go2Buildings.com Web site and environmental clearinghouse, which brought designers, builders, and suppliers together to advance green building. Prior to that she worked with Ecosmart, an environmental showroom on Wall Street. She had also worked with architect Bill Bobenhausen, FAIA, who noted that “no one cared more or worked harder for environmental change.” The

Center for Economic and Environmental Partnership, Inc. (CEEP) in Albany, which sponsored the Salon series, will continue that program under the direction of Julia Lynch. For information visit www.ceepinc.org.

According to the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy,

net petroleum imports into the United States reached a new all-time record in 2003: 56.1% of oil consumption. This represents a 5.1% increase over net imports in 2002, and a 1.1% increase over the previous record in 2001. Imports from OPEC represented 42.2% of the total imports in 2003, which is still well below the all-time peak of 70% in 1977.