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Council reviews options to cut building emissions; staff suggests committee and targeted pilots
Summary
City staff on July 17 presented several policy options to reduce building emissions — from better home‑energy disclosure to subsidies for low‑income upgrades, stronger local building performance standards and a carbon pollution fee — and asked the council which approaches to prioritize.
City staff outlined multiple options on July 17 for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from buildings and asked the Milwaukee City Council to identify priorities the new Climate Action Committee and staff should investigate further.
Katie Guevara reviewed the city’s climate goals (net‑zero electricity by 2030 and net‑zero building emissions by 2035) and summarized several policy tools: automating and improving compliance for the city’s home energy score (HES) program for single‑family homes; expanding or designing a rental disclosure program; targeted subsidies and service‑provider partnerships for low‑income energy upgrades; engaging with Oregon’s Building Performance Standards (BPS) for large existing buildings and exploring more ambitious local emission targets; and considering an appliance‑based carbon pollution fee for new construction, modeled on proposals in other Oregon cities.
Guevara noted the HES disclosure is currently required for publicly listed homes and that city compliance has been limited by staff capacity; several council members asked whether the city could increase compliance by integrating HES into the multiple listing service (MLS) or otherwise automating listing fields. Guevara said Portland and other cities contract with third‑party implementers that provide compliance checks and data services, and that extending HES to multifamily rental properties would raise additional technical and enforcement challenges.
On existing buildings, Guevara summarized the state’s building performance standard process and said it allows localities to adopt more stringent targets. Portland staff are exploring carbon‑based standards that would require large buildings to reduce emissions or meet alternate compliance paths such as purchasing renewable energy. Guevara said the city is participating in a regional technical assistance grant to analyze Milwaukee’s building stock and model what additional local standards would require.
The city also reviewed a pilot funding program with Community Energy Project to subsidize energy retrofits for low‑income households and discussed a carbon pollution fee for new construction that would charge appliance‑level fees tied to a social cost of carbon and use revenue for low‑income energy assistance (Ashland has proposed a similar fee).
Public speaker Anne Pernick of Safe Cities at Stand Earth (Safe Cities at Santa Earth) urged the council to pursue both a carbon pollution fee for new construction and stronger local energy‑use or carbon targets for existing buildings, arguing the two approaches are complementary. Council members generally favored using the Climate Action Committee to weigh tradeoffs and recommended prioritizing lower‑staff‑intensity steps (HES improvements, targeted retrofit funding and implementing the building‑stock analysis) before committing to higher‑complexity policies that would require more staff and budget.
