Michael Hernandez from Rewiring America to Speak on Dec. 18th
Michael Hernandez, the New York policy director for Rewiring America, will be the featured speaker at the upcoming.quarterly meeting of the Ithaca 2030 District.
Michael leads the efforts at Rewiring America to help shape state policy initiatives so they will accelerate the transition to building electrification, which Rewiring America views as the most practical strategy for addressing the climate crisis.
Previously, Michael served as the Assistant Secretary for Program & Policy at the NYS Assembly, where he was a lead negotiator for the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) of 2019.
Michael Hernandez is the New York policy director for Rewiring America.
The CLCPA mandated the creation of an inventory of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission sources in NYS which found that the building sector is the largest source of these emissions. Accordingly, building electrification is the largest driver of direct emissions reductions.
The 2024 Energy Conservation Construction Code is the key to implementing the CLCPA, the All Electric Buildings Act of 2023, and the Advanced Building Codes, Appliance and Equipment Efficiency Standards Act of 2022 in order to achieve GHG reduction targets.
The Department of State’s Division of Building Codes and Standards (DOS) has been drafting the 2024 Building Code Update, which will go into effect in 2025.
Michael will talk about where things stand in the development of the 2024 code. The most recent draft version was issued this past summer and received roughly 10,000 comments.
The Building Code Council has been reviewing this feedback and was supposed to convene this month, but the meeting has been postponed until Wednesday, January,16 at 10 am.
As the building energy code update currently stands, it meets the requirements of both the All Electric Buildings Act and the Advanced Building Code and Standards Act, helping the state to achieve the ambitious targets laid out in the CLCPA. We must continue to advocate in support of this ambitious draft energy code.
The bottom line, then, is that the revised draft involving the building energy code stands at the center of the fight to ensure New York’s place at the head of the U.S. climate movement.
Be sure to attend the 2030 District quarterly meeting on December 18 to hear all about new energy code and the road ahead.