AIA Statement on SCOTUS Decision in West Virginia v. EPA

I’ve gotten an inquiry from Architectural Record about writing an article or essay on the implications of this decision for the building industry. I don’t have much of a sense of the implications regarding buildings specifically. Does anyone want to take this on? Or share some ideas and we can crowdsource it? Feel free to share any thoughts here, or email me directly if you’d like to take a more active role and or take this on. The article is due July 8. Yours, Nadav

Regarding the AIA statement, I'm reallyy glad the AIA had a swift and definitve response. Thanks for sharing Mary Ann. Regarding an article/essay on this ruling, here are my initial (not yet researched) thoughts, hoping to spur comments and additional ideas!:

• There are few, if any, direct effects to the AEC industry from this ruling, but it is still a HUGE deal because...
  • The AEC industry will experience significant secondary effects, as the ruling will slow the "greening of the grid" at the same time that the industry is poised to shift to more and more to all-electric buildings
  • The utilities (and the downstream rate payers) will not be faced with the same clear, national market signals incentivizing the "greening of the grid" and "electrifying everything" that would have existed under the current EPA structure implemented across the nation.
  • THE AEC industry will face a more fragmented and disparate utility landscape within which to build and grid-tie buildings, and therefore firms will have to still develop deep expertise in all-electric and grid-integrated buildings when working in progressive states promoting and requiring such effots (e.g. CA) and will also be faced in other less progressive states with clients and project briefs overtly not requiring the same expertise.
  • This may portend that over time, that the expanding Red-Blue cultural divide across states will also become more directly evident in the built environment as well, with climate/environmental inequities getting magnified.

I don't know if these notions are worthy of a full article, but I'm interested to hear other's thoughts on this (maybe the electrification group can weigh in?). I hate to waste invited opportunities for our group to advance these kinds of discussions in national media, so I hope we can come up with something. Clark

Thanks Mary Ann and Clark. I hope this will not also ripple down to impact state commitments (and their PUC's efforts). We do a lot of work with local governments, helping to create policies and regulations (and NZ decarb plans) and this can also a big cloud over those efforts. Not so much in my world, personally since I'm working with those who take a very aggressive stance, but those states who may not be as internally motivated/driven to set aggressive goals etc., that others in this community may be working with (or advocating to) - may face increased challenges.  I wish I had more to add that would be useful. Architects, historically, have been active in public policy - as we should be - and I'd wager that there are many from COTE/this community who have been hard at work and may feel the blowback from this. This may take some wind out of those sails.

What occurs to me is that private companies, especially those with a national presence, are going to have to increasingly step up to the plate in exerting strong environmental leadership (and policies) and working to exert political pressure on state governments. I’m thinking about the influence companies like Kaiser and Google have had through their purchasing decisions. If Federal regulations largely disappear, the private sector can play a huge role maintaining stringent compliance with third-party standards—perhaps even exceeding current Federal regulations. -Alex Founder, BuildingGreen, Inc. 122 Birge Street, Suite 30 Brattleboro, VT 05301 802-257-7300 ext. 106 802-579-4858 (cell) www.buildinggreen.com www.resilientdesign.org Twitter: http://twitter.com/atwilson

After taking a weekend to recover, my thoughts have been to consider the tactics we (as architects) have at our disposal. We (in AEC, but in green gurus especially!) have already been pushing for reductions of carbon emissions in our industry through whole building LCA, energy modeling, purchasing renewables, and working on getting carbon emission limits into our specifications. We've collaborated with the CLF on policy-making documents and advocacy. So what's left?  Well, we need to continue to do our advocacy work at the local level. It's where we've always had our greatest amount of success, and the ability of cities like NYC to regulate carbon associated with buildings is not called into question with this decision.  We need to continue to demand EPDs (especially now that carbon may not be capped by national regulations on manufacturers) and to use that data to create a market-level preference for products that do not worsen our climate crisis. Does this now mean that we may be throwing more business at the manufacturers in states like California that more closely regulate these emissions? Quite possibly, yes. But the data has shown for a long time that, when it comes to carbon emissions, for most materials the transportation-related emissions are a tiny fraction of those emitted during manufacturing. So if we can't count on EPA policy and enforcement (the stick), we need to figure out how to make the best, shiniest carrot for private companies to reduce emissions on their own.  And my final thought - let's work to bring all players within the AEC supply chain to collaborate. The act of making a building is inherently political - look at the history of brutalism, modernism, or any other design philosophy - we need to embrace that. We need to make every project an act of activism - educate and advocate so that every single person, company, and entity involved is on board with addressing the climate crisis. We can't expect our buildings to speak for themselves anymore - we need to be the LOUD voices ensuring the future.    @nadav - I'll send off an email, too, but if you still need hands-on help, let me know. 

Very glad to see the AIA stance. This is the best analysis I’ve seen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/volts-podcast-jay-duffy-on-the-supreme-courts-epa-decision/id1548554104?i=1000568763425 An interview between David Roberts (Volts podcast) and one of the lawyers on the case, Jay Duffy, of the Clean Air Task Force. The interview makes the ruling appear less dire than the way much of the media has cast it. The ruling appears to include a great deal of nuance, generally suggesting that regulating coal plants cannot be done at a certain scale that requires fuel switching, but other regulations that allow fuel switching at the state level might be ok. The podcast is very highly recommended. I’d be happy to contribute thoughts to the effect on architects. I can say that from the standpoint of someone very involved in the energy code in Washington https://www.sierraclub.org/washington/blog/2022/05/washington-passes-codes-transition-buildings-fossil-fuels-nationwide-first-0 this may have a chilling effect since it is entirely possible that the Supreme Court could rule on regulations that require fuel switching/electrification. In addition to what’s already been said, this also suggests that we are much farther from national leadership on climate that I thought we were a year ago, that counting on electricity generational carbon to be reduced in the very near term is less likely since progressive and conservative states share an electricity grid and buy from one another (although many companies and utilities will locate their renewable energy in more conservative states, thus perhaps encouraging transition), and that we need a new national plan (more likely a set of plans) for decarbonization. This last one is where architects and our many collaborators can play a huge role in insisting that we are at the table for the important discussions…not sure how many architects were involved in earlier discussions on the plans. -Kjell From: E

Good Morning all, This issue came up on the US Architects Declare Steering committee last Friday and we determined we will put out a public statement in the next few weeks. I will be leading up the writing for the US AD efforts and glad to work with this team as well. I think there are 2 parts to this op-ed: one is commenting on the deterioration of democratic norms and sounding the alarm bells as this court is pushing through an unpopular/partisan agenda (tricky but think we should go there to frame the ethical imperative!), the second and more important part is what can architects do about this (which is what everyone is grappling with but many members have given great input so far -> this may have a community side and a technical analysis side). Although we are asked to comment on the EPA ruling, because it is an op-ed, I would push for us to broaden the tent to, briefly, talk about the succession of unpopular rulings because the fall of court systems is a canary in a coal mine. At the core of it is the recent rulings that have taken place (relegating women to second class citizens without a functioning social support structure for having children, series of EPA rulings, eroding the separation of church and state -> siding with religious fundamentalists that strongly believe that man has ultimate dominion over nature to do with it what he wills) and what is to come (we can expect that the gutting of federal voting standards will add to the issues opened up by reducing protections from the Federal Voting Rights Act and Citizens United). Fundamentally we are not building for a political timeline. We are building to support communities in a worst-case scenario for 80 – 100 years and aspirational for 500 years or more with solid retrofits along the way. We understand that climate changes is a tens of thousands of years issue and that we can get it wrong in the next few years. This takes a long term view that goes beyond the political/financial nihilism that we are currently witnessing. I would love for that to be the framing -> what can we do to address the compounding impacts of the climate, justice, and biodiversity emergency? And let’s act like it’s an emergency! The AIA statement is great but by nature it is calm and about consensus building. It expects that voting will have positive outcomes, but this court is going to make it harder and harder to vote (they already have under Roberts). An op-ed should push the boundaries and get people thinking. If we only address the technical architectural zone we are comfortable with (building decarbonization) we will miss very real issues with the op-ed (the erosion of fundamental human rights, including the right to a habitable planet for all). Getting us to believe that we can’t solve the complexity of climate change within democratic norms, and while leaving whole communities behind, is part of the danger zone we are in. This is a trap that none of us want to fall into. The call to local many mentioned is very important in this, along with the technical rigor required to switch and electrify. We are already seeing in AIA COTE that the will of local chapters is being overturned by state regulation (energy codes are a striking example of this in the heartland). Glad to join in if there is a core group forming to write something (if you can’t tell I’m ready to beat this drum with all of you). Arathi

A fundamental part of Columbia's Commitment to Sustainable Building Practices is to "Publicly support legislation for carbon reduction policies on local, state & national levels." I hope all businesses that are part of this group are also seeking opportunities to publicly support specific policy changes.
https://www.ceres.org/sites/default/files/2022-05/Business-Sign-on-Letter-2022-Climate-Bill-Conference-Committee.pdf  

Wow--great to have everyone's input. It seems that we're strong on the "what we should do about it" ideas--basically, double down on all things we've been trying to do. We don't have as much when it comes to thinking about how this ruling is likely to affect our industry, and our hopes for climate action. But I think we can get there, with the caveat that this is uncharted territory with mostly unknowns... I just spoke with Efrie and we agreed to convene all who are interested and collaborate on something. I've invited everyone who has chimed in here to a Zoom call at 11:30 eastern time tomorrow. Here's the link--if you're interested in contributing, please join us. Join Zoom Meeting
ID: 83668367049
Passcode: 198972
‪(US) +1 929-205-6099‬

I agree that we souldn't miss this opportunity to engage in this conversation with Architectural Record.  I particularly like what Efrie suggested - "make every project an act of activism - educate and advocate so that every single person, company, and entity involved is on board with addressing the climate crisis."  Make every project a testament to reason, clarity, honesty, and responsible stewardship.  Especially since we are so thwarted in other arenas. Of course, that's what this group does every day, so maybe its a question of being louder, more assertive, less apologetic, less tolerant, more visionary............?

Bisnow had a very short piece on this today, and it brought up the connection between the supreme court ruling and the proposed SEC climate disclosure rules. The SEC rules would have a direct impact on real estate for publicly traded RE companies, and materials manufacturers, and for those of us working for the government. I don’t know all the trickle-down levels of the proposed SEC rules, but it seemed like it could have a lot of impacts for RE. So, that’s at least one potential tie back to us if the current SC opinion continues to be utilized for limiting the powers of regulatory agencies. The West Virginia ruling and others like it could, for example, pave the way to curb the Securities and Exchange Commission in its effort to enact reporting rules for emissions generated by certain building materials or commercial property tenants. “If the Supreme Court shows that it’s pretty strongly supportive of the major questions doctrine — that is, they care about narrowing constructions of regulatory authority — it should give commissioners on the SEC some pause,” Andrew Vollmer, a deputy general counsel for the SEC during the George W. Bush administration, told Bisnow. https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/industrial/supreme-court-limits-federal-regulatory-authority-in-greenhouse-gas-emissions-case-113606?utm_source=outbound_pub_1&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_59026&utm_content=outbound_link_12&utm_medium=email Steven Burke. LEED & WELL Faculty Director Of Sustainability m: 774.462.2044 consigli.com From: Nadav M

Hi Folks - The piece that this post's ad-hoc working group produced was published in Architectural Record this morning:
https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/15761-the-supreme-courts-wake-up-call-to-architects?oly_enc_id=9107D9455178J5T  Thanks to Nadav for organizing and to everyone who contributed! Clark