House Democrats Urge Powerful Body Overseeing Building Codes To Keep Climate Provisions [Video]

House Democrats warned the private organization that writes the nation’s homebuilding guidelines against eliminating climate-friendly provisions, HuffPost has learned. The measures are aimed at lowering the cost of replacing gas-burning appliances and automobiles with electric alternatives.

The top Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter Wednesday to executives of the International Code Council, the nonprofit consortium of industry groups and local governments that updates the generic codes used throughout most of the United States every three years. According to a copy of the letter obtained by HuffPost, they said told the council they “strongly advocate” rejecting the natural gas industry’s attempt to gut pro-electrification rules from the latest update to its code book, set to come out this year.

Trade associations representing natural gas utilities and furnace makers launched a last-ditch effort last fall to strike the provisions in the next round of national building codes …