42 U.S.C. § 6831 : US Code - Section 6831: Congressional findings and purpose

Search 42 U.S.C. § 6831 : US Code - Section 6831: Congressional findings and purpose

(a) The Congress finds that -
(1) large amounts of fuel and energy are consumed unnecessarily
each year in heating, cooling, ventilating, and providing
domestic hot water for newly constructed residential and
commercial buildings because such buildings lack adequate energy
conservation features;
(2) Federal voluntary performance standards for newly
constructed buildings can prevent such waste of energy, which the
Nation can no longer afford in view of its current and
anticipated energy shortage;
(3) the failure to provide adequate energy conservation
measures in newly constructed buildings increases long-term
operating costs that may affect adversely the repayment of, and
security for, loans made, insured, or guaranteed by Federal
agencies or made by federally insured or regulated
instrumentalities; and
(4) State and local building codes or similar controls can
provide an existing means by which to assure, in coordination
with other building requirements and with a minimum of Federal
interference in State and local transactions, that newly
constructed buildings contain adequate energy conservation
features.
(b) The purposes of this subchapter, therefore, are to -
(1) redirect Federal policies and practices to assure that
reasonable energy conservation features will be incorporated into
new commercial and residential buildings receiving Federal
financial assistance;
(2) provide for the development and implementation, as soon as
practicable, of voluntary performance standards for new
residential and commercial buildings which are designed to
achieve the maximum practicable improvements in energy efficiency
and increases in the use of nondepletable sources of energy; and
(3) encourage States and local governments to adopt and enforce
such standards through their existing building codes and other
construction control mechanisms, or to apply them through a
special approval process.