The

Good Wood Alliance, formerly the Woodworkers’ Alliance for Rain-forest Protection (WARP), is merging with the

Forest Products Buyers Group to form a new organization:

The Certified Forest Products Council (CFPC). The CFPC will be based in Beaverton, Oregon, and directed by David Ford. Good Wood Alliance’s executive director, Yurij Bihun, will be leaving the group to pursue other interests.

One factor driving up the size of American homes may have been removed with the recent changes to the U.S. tax code. The August 8, 1997 issue of the lumber industry newsletter Eastern Quotes & Comments notes that people who sell homes in expensive markets and retire to less expensive areas often bought huge houses to avoid paying the capital gains taxes they would have owed had they bought an inexpensive house. The new release from capital gains taxes upon sale of a primary residence removes this perverse incentive for empty castles.

A new membership organization, the

Wisconsin Green Building Alliance, has been formed as an independent program of the Wisconsin Environmental Initiative. The new Milwaukee-based organization aims to promote green building practices.

Matthew Tendler, AIA, of the firm Kahler Slater, is the organization’s first steering committee chairman and contact person. Tendler can be reached at 414/272-2000.

During May 1997, the United States reached an all-time high in petroleum imports, with 52.4% net imports, according to the

Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Total imports in May were 57.2% of petroleum supplied, but the U.S. exports some petroleum to U.S. territories, resulting in lower

net imports. 1997 is well on the way to becoming a record in terms of dependence on imported oil.

A few days after Browne’s address at Stanford, Senate Majority Leader

Trent Lott blasted solar when addressing the

Independent Petroleum Association. An article in the May 23

Washington Post (reported by

PV News) quoted Lott as facetiously saying: “I’m sure you petroleum folks understand that solar power will solve all our problems. How much money have we blown on that? This is the hippies’ program from the ’70s and they’re still pushing this stuff.”

, in a commencement address to graduates of Stanford University in May, broke ranks with many in the petroleum industry by expressing concern about global warming. He was quoted in the July/August issue of

Solar Today as asserting that it is “unwise and potentially dangerous to ignore the mounting concern” about global warming. British Petroleum is investing heavily in photovoltaics and will open what is described as the world’s largest and most modern PV manufacturing plant later this year in Fairfield, California. According to

PV News, the 10-megawatt plant will use cadmium-telluride technology. The company expects to quadruple its PV manufacturing capacity over the next decade and reach $1 billion in annual sales.

Newsbriefs

Joseph Romm is the Acting Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy, having replaced

Christine Ervin, who has moved over to the President’s Council for Sustainable Development. Romm, the author of

Lean & Clean Management: How to Boost Profits and Productivity by Reducing Pollution (Kodansha America, Inc., 1994), worked with the Rocky Mountain Institute in advancing the productivity benefits of green buildings before beginning with DOE early in the Clinton Administration.

Newsbriefs

The Good Wood Alliance, formerly the Woodworkers Alliance for Rainforest Protection (WARP), is shifting its direction to serve as a trade association for the sustainable forest products industry. Based in Burlington, Vermont, with chapters in Canada, the Pacific Northwest, and Scandinavia, the Good Wood Alliance has a membership of approximately 1,000, more than double the number in 1993. Newly elected president Lewis Buchner of the San Francisco-based Architectural Forest Enterprises, says that the alliance “will increasingly serve the needs of suppliers of independently certified forest products, lesser-known species or lesser-used species and reclaimed or ‘rediscovered’ wood products.” For more information, contact the Good Wood Alliance at 802/658-4443 or warp@together.net (e-mail), www.goodwood.org.

AURA vacuum panel insulation, reviewed in EBN

Vol. 4, No. 1, has been mothballed by manufacturer Owens Corning. A press release from the company blames a lack of interest from refrigerator manufacturers, after they succeeded in postponing new energy standards from 1998 to July 2001. The AURA panel was used in the freezer compartment of Whirlpool’s “Golden Carrot” prize-winning refrigerator. Some units made with the vacuum panel may still be on the market, but they are no longer being manufactured. Owens Corning anticipates renewed interest in the insulation as the new deadline approaches.

A new organization entitled the Center for Ecological Building Design (CEBD) has been established in London, Ontario, Canada. CEBD defines as its primary goal: “to seek out people-friendly, earth-friendly and cost-effective residential building methods and designs.” CEBD is

developing a touring display of eco-building techniques and technologies, and is soliciting materials to exhibit. Contact: Roger Good, Executive Director, 519/621-4880, 519/471-9542 (fax).