Soft Policies for Hard Problems: Implementing Energy Conserving Building Regulations in California

Abstract

In 1977, California became the first state to develop mandatory building standards aimed at reducing the great quantities of energy that poorly designed and poorly constructed buildings consume. The California Energy Commission calculated that if all builders and designers complied fully with the standards, the state could save 290 billion kilowatt hours of electricity by the year 2000, equivalent to energy produced over the next 20 years by two and a half medium-sized nuclear or coal-powered plants.'