The

Certified Wood and Paper Association (CWPA), which was formed in 2002 during a reorganization of the Certified Forest Products Council, ceased operations on April 15, 2004. According to a letter on the CWPA Web site by the Board of Directors, the organization was forced to dissolve due to lack of financial resources. Michael Washburn of the Forest Stewardship Council’s U.S. office told

EBN that CWPA played two important roles: first, they delivered training programs for architects on how to specify FSC-certified wood; second, they worked with individual architects and contractors to procure FSC-certified material (a sort of hand-holding function).

Metafore, the other organization that was formed during the reorganization of CFPA, has a broader mandate that is not limited to FSC certification; that organization promotes other certification systems as well as wood-use efficiency, waste reduction, and recycling. Metafore maintains the certifiedwood.org Web site. While Washburn is disappointed to see CWPA disappear, he argues that FSC certification will continue to be promoted, and training programs for architects will continue. “The world isn’t going to stop,” he said.

New Jersey’s Renewable Energy Task Force, created by Governor McGreevey in January 2004, finalized in March plans to strengthen the State’s

renewable portfolio standard (RPS), which requires energy suppliers to provide a certain percentage of renewable power, including that from solar, wind, renewable biomass, landfill gas, geothermal, and tidal sources. The Task Force recommended doubling the current RPS from 2% to 4% by 2008 and established a new requirement that the State acquire 20% of its power from renewable sources by 2020. Governor McGreevey accepted the recommendations and asked the Board of Public Utilities to begin implementing them.

green building strategies at two new supercenters in Aurora, Colorado and McKinney, Texas. The retailer plans to partner with colleges and universities to measure the success of the technologies; results will then be shared with the broader design and retail industries, and promising solutions could become standard in new Wal-Mart stores. The company chose Aurora and McKinney because their climates offer distinct testing conditions for the technologies, which are expected to range from photovoltaic panels to stormwater management systems. Wal-Mart hopes to break ground on the two experimental stores as soon as late summer 2004.

Shortly after celebrating the fourth anniversary of the LEED

^® Rating System, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) awarded its

100th LEED certification—a Silver rating for the Bonneville Power Administration Ampere Annex in Vancouver, Washington—on April 14, 2004. And, on April 19, USGBC received a LEED registration for the St. Francis Indian School in St. Francis, South Dakota, fulfilling the Council’s goal to have registered projects in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. More than 1,200 projects have so far been registered with the USGBC, with the goal of LEED certification.

When the

Bush Administration attempted to lower energy-efficiency standards set by the Clinton White House (from SEER 13 to SEER 12), a coalition of consumer organizations and attorneys general challenged the move. The Second Court of Appeals in New York City rejected the Bush plans (see

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Vol. 13, No. 2), but air-conditioner manufacturers and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) threatened to appeal the Court’s decision. Both groups have now declined to appeal, allowing the new standard to take effect as scheduled, in January of 2006.

the work of architect Samuel Mockbee in a traveling exhibition. The exhibition, which will feature 12 models and more than 100 photographs of Mockbee’s work at Auburn University’s Rural Studio, will open in Washington, D.C. on May 22. For more information on Mockbee and his work, see the review of

Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency in

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Vol. 12, No. 1. More information about the exhibition can be found at www.nbm.org.

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Vol. 8, No. 10), Southface Energy Institute designed the Communities program to address the environmental performance of individual homes as well as neighborhood design, site modification, and community education. Four Georgia developments, representing hundreds of acres and thousands of homes, are serving as pilot projects: Vickery in Forsyth County, Glenwood Park in downtown Atlanta, Clark’s Grove in Covington, and a neighborhood in Fulton County’s Chattahoochee Hill Country. The program is sponsored by the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association, the Urban Land Institute, the Atlanta Regional Commission, and the Southface Energy Institute. For more information, contact Southface at 404-872-3549, or visit them online at www.southface.org.

Stakeholder meetings for the two Task Groups working under the auspices of the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Technical and Scientific Advisory Committee (TSAC) were held on February 17 and 18, 2004 in Washington, D.C. (see

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Vol. 12, No. 12 for background). The two issues being examined are

the use of HCFC refrigerants and PVC in building materials. While very different in nature, both stakeholder meetings raised a lot of issues and provided useful input to the respective Task Groups.

PV News, to a total of 742 megawatts of generation capacity. But production in the U.S. dropped by 20% due to problems at AstroPower, which fell apart following an accounting scandal, and reduced U.S. production by BP Solar, which is ramping up plants in Australia and Spain. Meanwhile GE is buying AstroPower’s production facilities for $15 million in cash and $3.5 million in debt, according to

The New York Times. GE bought Enron’s wind energy division in 2002 and has been very successful with it. The move by GE into solar is being heralded by some as proof that solar power has also arrived as a major player.

² (67 m

²)

green construction trailer, stationed at the construction site of an office building outside Green Bay for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (designed to achieve LEED Silver certification). The Boldt team used improved insulation; energy-efficient doors, windows, and lights; and occupancy sensors to reduce the trailer’s heating energy by 40% and electricity use and cooling energy by 35% each. Boldt is online at www.boldt.com.