The New York Times ran an article yesterday highlighting the removal of a key existing building labeling program from the Waxman-Markey bill. The ‘industry’ is claiming that labeling the efficiency of existing buildings would be akin to pasting a Scarlet Letter on them. To paraphrase: people might choose not to purchase an inefficient building, might offer less than sellers are asking, or might ask for efficiency improvements before concluding the purchase of the building. (Gasp!)

Well, duh. That’s THE POINT. The labeling program would allow the market to demonstrate preference for energy efficient buildings, thus incentivizing owners and hopeful sellers to invest in these improvements.

IT IS JUST LIKE BUYING A CAR or an appliance. When you buy a used car, however, you can look up what the gas mileage is supposed to be because they are all made on an assembly line. While many houses and even commercial buildings may look like they were manufactured on a line, they are not and therefore they need to be individually and accurately labeled.

Now if I was an auto exec right about now, I’d be getting kind of worked up about this. What precipitated the economic collapse of our country? Gee I think it was the real estate industry, specifically homes and the mortgage crisis. So here I am, forced to label my cars’ gas mileage for years, forced to improve gas mileage on a regular basis, forced to introduce super efficient car models to the market and now thanks to the real estate industry, my (auto) industry has suffered not only deep financial losses, but also DEEP HUMILIATION. And they want to whine about what a burden it would be to label their properties??? Get over it. The world is a-changing. 

Hopefully this will get slipped back into the Senate version. (and now I will climb down from my rant-box).