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Portland to Introduce Green Building Feebates

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Officials in Portland, Oregon have proposed a far-reaching green building program that would be the first of its kind in the U.S. For new commercial buildings 20,000 square feet or larger, the proposal sets up a "feebate" program – developers that merely meet Oregon’s state building code would be assessed a fee by the City of up to $3.46 per square foot. The fee would be waived for buildings that achieve LEED Silver certification; and those that achieve LEED Gold, LEED Platinum or the Living Building Challenge, would receive rebates of $1.73-$17.30 per square foot depending on the level of certification. The policy also requires buildings to achieve specific LEED credits, emphasizing energy efficiency and water use reduction, for example. Multifamily residential properties 5000 square feet or larger would be subject to the same requirements and be eligible for rebates of $0.51-$5.15 per square foot. Larger multifamily projects 50,000 square feet or larger that receive City funding must meet at least LEED Silver and must avoid wood products with added urea formaldehyde as well as vinyl flooring. All existing commercial and multifamily residential buildings will have to publicly disclose energy performance by 2013 but won’t have to make improvements. For […]

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Podcast: Green Week in Review – February 27, 2009

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The Green Week in Review is a podcast, hosted by SustainableBusiness.com News Editor Bart King. It’s posted every Friday morning and is about 15 minutes long. You can listen to it through your browser or download it to a portable MP3 player. Sign up for our General News RSS Feed and it will be automatically downloaded to your computer’s media player each week. In this week’s show… President Obama addressed Congress this week to push his legislative agenda, beginning with clean energy and a carbon cap-and-trade bill. On Tuesday U.S. courts rejected two weak regulatory efforts put forth by the Bush-era EPA. The EPA and the transportation Department are working together to devise a single policy for regulating vehicle emissions Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is scrapping the Bush’s midnight regulations designed to rush oil shale development; however, he intends to replace it with a plan of his own. Irrigation water will be unavailable to farmers in California’s main agricultural region this year, meaning 1 million acres will be left idle as drought conditions worsen. A NASA satellite designed to monitor carbon dioxide levels on earth crashed into the ocean shortly after launch. Plus, as always, a quick review of top […]

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