House Energy panel requests agency feedback on measured residential energy code bill

Montpelier — The House Energy & Digital Infrastructure Committee spent the session on H.718, a compromise bill that would take incremental steps toward a statewide residential building code while creating study and administrative measures to stabilize the transition, committee members said.

Andrew Brewer, manager of government and public affairs at Downs Rockland Martin, testified on behalf of the Home Builders Association, the Vermont Builders and Remodelers Association, and the Architects Association. Brewer framed the bill as a cautious, pragmatic response to what builders say is growing technical complexity in energy codes without a matching statewide administrative structure. "If the state is gonna attach legal consequences to compliance with a very technical code, that code should operate within a coherent regulatory structure, clear authority, consistent interpretation, training inspection, reasonable liability boundaries," Brewer said.

The bill does not immediately adopt a full residential code statewide, Brewer and other supporters emphasized. Instead, H.718 would study adoption, expand a…