Left-wing environmentalists like recent Albuquerque Journal columnist Edward Mazria love government regulations. In this case, the author is calling for more restrictive energy efficiency regulations on buildings.
As usual, he argues that 1) rather than costing money (or at least acknowledging that regulations have trade-offs), the preferred regulations have nothing but economic benefits; 2) Unstated, but implicit is the assumption that customers and consumers are too ignorant and uninformed to demand greater energy efficiency on their own 3) The regulations will save the world from the dire threat of global warming.
Simply put, Mazria fails to answer or even address any of these issues and instead simply asserts the need to use government force to demand that the rest of us simply fall in line with his personal preferences. Rather than falling victim to his scare tactics, New Mexicans should return to the old building code regulations and, if they prefer greater energy efficiency, the market will fulfill that wish.
When Heather Wilson was in congress she voted to pass a law to make our “old” light bulbs illegal in favor of the “new curly” light bulbs because we are not smart enough to make the right choice for our selves. Does that make her a liberal left wing environmentalist like Mazria?
Can I presume that the new building code regulations will result in new buildings using less energy to operate than older buildings? If that is so, it seems to be good thing. A point of contention is that the new regulations will add to the construction costs and those added costs will be borne by the new owners. Canceling the new, energy saving regulations is an example of something that is good for a few is often not good for the many. Canceling the new code regulations is good for the few with new buildings in the short term. The additional energy used by buildings constructed with the old codes will mean less energy available for and higher costs for the many. More demand leads to higher costs.