New Jersey

The previous two months were a good demonstration of the checks and balances embedded in state governments. There were three cases of back-and-forth vetoes between governors and their state legislatures, resulting in two energy efficiency “wins” and one “loss”. Let’s take a closer look at these cases.

We find ourselves hanging in a careful balance between continuing our work on various plans and policies that started before COVID-19 and managing a new direct response to the pandemic. This policy tracker is the first of a two-part analysis of policies in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. This first installment focuses on non-COVID-19 policies. Keep an eye out for the second blog analyzing COVID-19 response efforts.

It’s a new year, which means a new opportunity to ramp up policy efforts to decarbonize our economy. We are one month into 2020 and so much has already happened with each state’s legislative session kicking off. The Northeast is responding to a call to action on climate and pushing the bar to ensure that we are carbon-neutral by 2050. Already, a few trends have surfaced, including carbon neutral targets, benchmarking, and energy efficiency planning. Let’s take a look.

As 2019 comes to a close and we look towards the start of a new decade, there is a lot on which to reflect. I think about the calendar year turning to 2020 and know that leaves us with just 10 years to drastically reduce our emissions to prevent catastrophic climate impacts. Ten years doesn’t seem like a long time, yet so much can happen in that time. During the last 10 years, I graduated high school, got my master's degree, and landed my dream job. For climate, it can mean reducing emissions by at least 45 percent.

Fall is upon us, though with typical New England weather, we are in the midst of our first fall and second summer of the season. This is the time of year where we dress for fall in the morning and for summer in the afternoon. It can cause lots of planning challenges! We see some similar state policy activity where some states are wrapping up items from the summer and others are in full swing on new activities this fall. Let’s take a look at recent activity.

Connecticut

In December 2017, NEEP published a revised edition of the Model Progressive Building Energy Codes Policy paper, or as we like to call it, our “energy code bible”. The latest version – a new Building Energy Codes for a Carbon-Constrained Era: A Toolkit of Strategies and Examples paper is divided into two sections.

On the menu for this Thanksgiving? A silver platter of midterm election results. Politics always comes up at the dinner table in my family, and I am sure the midterm election results will not be left behind this Thanksgiving. One of the subjects I am curious about is how the midterm election will impact energy and climate. Let’s take a look at what we know so far.

This post is a collaboration between two of our High Performance Buildings & Communities program staff, Darren Port and Christina Rohrbacher.

From the invention of the electrostatic generator (1747) to the discovery of oil (1856), Pennsylvania has a long list of firsts in the realm of energy. Now for the first time in nearly a decade, PA is ringing in the advent of a new statewide energy code.

As we enter a new year, we tend to set resolutions in an attempt to inspire self-growth and to start the year off on the right foot. My personal new year’s resolution it to eat less meat and buy my produce from local farmers markets. For me, this means eating meat that has been raised sustainably. And, as much as I can, not eating it at all. It’s not always easy to stick to resolutions, but the New Year is a great time to think about making changes and creating plans to make those changes happen.