After a Congressional hearing last week examining the science behind green building rating systems, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers and the American Chemistry Council asked Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) to reject the “fatally flawed” amendments to the U.S. Green Business Council’s green building program, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), which government bureaucrats require all new federal properties meet. In total, forty-five state governments and 100 cities have likewise mandated LEED compliance for government properties.
“We share a deep concern that the USGBC’s latest iteration of LEED has been developed out of step with federal government criteria, which includes process protections such as a true consensus-based approach,” the groups, which number twenty in total, wrote. “Our strong view is that the current third draft of LEED 2012 is fatally flawed and must go back to the drawing board with true consensus process, or be rejected by federal agencies.”
Broun, who chairs the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee for the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, expressed his own concerns over the program after one witness, an academic who has studied the science of green building, critiqued its environmental impact.
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