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Vermont fire-safety director says DFS lacks resources to serve as authority on new energy codes
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Summary
At an April 30 House Energy and Digital Infrastructure hearing, Michael Durocher, director of the Division of Fire Safety, told lawmakers the division cannot currently absorb responsibility for enforcing residential energy standards without more staff, training and statutory changes.
Montpelier — Michael Durocher, executive director of the Vermont Division of Fire Safety, told the House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee on April 30 that the division does not have the staffing, training or funding needed to serve as the authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) for enforcement of residential energy codes. The testimony came during a committee hearing taking testimony on H.181 and on proposed residential and commercial building energy standards.
Durocher said the division already oversees fire service training, urban search and rescue, hazardous-materials response, fire investigation, construction permitting across the state and licensing boards for electricians, plumbers, accessibility and elevators. “The division does not have the bandwidth or the resources to manage the energy efficiency program,” he said, citing a lack of trained employees and adequate funding.
The nut of Durocher’s concern was money and workforce. He told the committee he presented the working group last year with an estimated $1,500,000 annual budget that would be needed to staff energy-efficiency specialists in DFS’s four district offices, including salaries, benefits and equipment. That estimate did not include taking on single-family owner-occupied homes, he said.
Why it matters: making DFS the AHJ would shift regulatory responsibility and generate new permitting and inspection workload for a state unit that currently reviews roughly $700,000,000 of construction valuation annually and issues about 2,500 building permits a year. Durocher said DFS already issues most permits quickly — about 95% within 30 days, with an average turnaround of roughly 15 days — and that adding energy-code reviews could slow permit issuance and raise costs for builders and owners.
Durocher also raised statutory and standards conflicts. Vermont’s Public Service Department has adopted updated residential energy rules (the RVs) that are not fully aligned with the building codes DFS enforces. DFS expects to file rules adopting the 2021 International Building Code (IBC) and the NFPA life-safety standards, while the Public Service Department has moved toward 2024 energy standards. Durocher said the International Residential Code (IRC), which applies to one- and two-family dwellings, contains energy provisions that may conflict with the Public Service Department’s RV requirements and that adopting the IRC would require careful vetting and additional contractor training. He noted statutory limits under Vermont law (citing 26 V.S.A. on architectural stamps and 30 V.S.A. on posting requirements) that affect how DFS could implement those standards.
On workforce and compliance, Durocher urged a training-first approach rather than immediate licensing. He told the committee, “I personally would not support licensing per se of contractors,” advocating instead for voluntary registration, tiered training or incentives to build contractor capacity. He said compliance rates are higher in commercial work because design professionals are involved; residential construction lacks that same professional workforce.
On administrative improvements, Durocher offered to explore an electronic process for submitting residential energy compliance certificates currently required to be posted in utility rooms, but he said doing so would require statutory changes to 30 V.S.A. to allow electronic filing rather than physical posting. He also said the division is preparing to reset an IRC workgroup and planned a meeting for May 9 to review adoption steps and outstanding conflicts.
Committee members probed alternatives. Representative Scott Campbell asked whether DFS would favor licensing residential contractors; Durocher reiterated his preference for training and voluntary registration. Other members suggested adopting a clear residential building code could provide a “standard of care” to form the basis of training programs; Durocher said that may be logical but cautioned that conflicts between energy rules and building codes would need resolution first.
Durocher also described recent increases in DFS responsibilities: the division now manages a rental housing health-and-safety program created by legislation, for which it received four staff positions to replace about 222 local health officers; the program handles roughly 600 complaints annually. He mentioned that a planned $1.4 million FEMA training grant was later canceled by the administration, noting the division had earmarked $400,000 of that award for energy-efficiency training.
No formal decision was taken at the hearing. The testimony and subsequent questions focused on identifying costs, statutory fixes and a workforce-development path before any change that would make DFS the AHJ for residential energy codes. The committee and DFS expect further work in the IRC workgroup and in the broader H.181 process.
