Guest editorial: Olympia advances another feel good, do-nothing climate policy
By: Sue Lani Madsen | Special to unDivided
There’s essential information, nice-to-have information, and why-are-you-telling-me-this information. HB 1015 is about requiring more of the latter. It would allow counties and cities to place a new requirement on residential sellers – requiring a home energy score before publicly listing a house for sale.
But it’s information buyers routinely ignore, according to folks in Oregon.
Washington state doesn’t have to be the crash test dummy for HB 1015. Portland first adopted residential energy labeling in 2017, joined later by the Oregon cities of Hillsboro, Milwaukie and Bend, effective July 1, 2023.
It wasn’t hard to check out how it’s working in Oregon, and researching those outcomes should be an essential part of any bill before it comes to committee. Randomly calling a central Oregon brokerage led to a productive conversation with Susanna Abrahamson, licensed Realtor and former chair of the Realtor’s government affairs committee at the time the requirement was adopted. A Home Energy Score (HES) as defined by the federal Department of Energy is mandated within the city limits of Bend for anyone selling their home with a realtor.
When Abrahamson tells sellers about the requirement, the reaction is . . . Why? Another expense? Do we have to? And what if we don’t?
On the buyer side, “people generally don’t even look at it. It’s mostly irrelevant,” said Abrahamson. “The vast majority of people do not care . . . I haven’t had a single client do something differently” in their decision making based on the Home Energy Score.
There are sincere, good intentions behind HB 1015 but it suffers from the Olympia “if it sounds good, it must be good” rule. Everywhere else, outcomes matter.
Home energy labeling was described at the January 17 Environment and Energy Committee hearing as a simple rating system, like a miles-per-gallon sticker on a new car. Home buyers would be able to compare mileage between houses, like one SUV to another. Except houses, especially houses up for resale, don’t have the consistency of a single make and model right off an assembly line.
Testimony and questions at the hearing highlighted the lack of inspectors as a barrier to a successful outcome for HB 1015. According to the Oregon experience, it appears the consistency of the inspections is also an issue.
Abrahamson described different certified inspectors rating a series of newly constructed homes with very different home energy score numbers. Or two inspectors reviewing the same house and coming up with different numbers.
Inconsistency has led to urban legends, like the one about sellers stacking solar panels in the garage so the energy score would go up. There were indeed solar panels on the property even if they weren’t producing power, following the letter if not the spirit of the program, so an inspector checked it off. Parsing words is what people do when forced to jump through hoops perceived to add no value to their lives.
Another concern raised at the committee hearing was the extra time to schedule an energy audit, and the subsequent delay in selling. Would waiting for an HES rating be a bottleneck to getting a home on the market quickly? Would it be a particular barrier for rural properties?
Michigan has a requirement similar to HB 1015, and a little poking around found a two month wait to get on the calendar of Ecotelligent Homes of Farmington Hills (near Detroit) for an inspection. Their travel policy indicates they like to stay within a 45-minute drive of their office, so rural Michigan is out of luck.
Apparently yes, getting an HES could be a bottleneck.
It's a conclusion based on the appointment calendar of a single company, but a conclusion no more speculative than assuming the demand for certified energy assessors will draw enough people to the currently empty field to eliminate backlogs. Ecotelligent Homes is plenty busy in Michigan. It’s reasonable to assume the future certified inspectors of Washington would be equally busy and just as prone to stay close to home base.
The language behind HB 1015 appears to be drawn from the Better Buildings program of the Department of Energy, available for use by any jurisdiction. It is unclear what purpose HB 1015 serves if counties and cities can already do it on their own. Thurston County is about to adopt a model ordinance for home energy labeling that has been in the works for three years. Why not wait and see what the outcomes are in Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater?
Touted as a market driven way to improve energy efficiency in existing homes, is HB 1015 really going to be useful for buyers in making a decision? For reducing energy consumption?
I asked my cousins David and Alena T. who sold a house in Portland within the last two years how the requirement affected their sale. David looked it up. “Our agent just marked the HES as a 1 on the listing, said people didn’t pay any attention to it and not worth putting any money towards it. Doesn’t matter for a good house in a good location.”
There you have it on HB 1015. Nobody cares. Houses sell. The market has spoken.
Of course, that won’t stop lawmakers in Olympia from proceeding.
HB 1015 was scheduled for Executive Session in the Environment and Energy Committee on January 24. Prime sponsor Rep. Davina Duerr (D-Bothell) submitted a proposed substitute expanding the program, if adopted by a county or city, to “include duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, cottage housing, townhouses, and attached accessory dwelling units in addition to single family residences” and to allow the adopting county to add additional categories of ratings.
PSHB was moved out of Committee on a party line vote, all Democrats in favor, all Republicans opposed. If you’re thinking of selling property in a county likely to jump on this bandwagon, keep an eye on this bill.
About the author:
Sue Lani Madsen calls herself an accidental journalist after 30 years as an architect. She spent nine years as a weekly columnist for the Spokesman-Review, writing about public policy and other topics reflecting her experience in agriculture as a rancher, rural healthcare and urban disaster response as an EMT, and wildland fire and forest policy as a firefighter. She publishes on Substack and The Center Square. She will also be contributing her expertise to unDivided's coverage of the 2025 Legislative Session. Sue Lani lives on a ranch west of Spokane with husband Craig, 200 plus goats and three dogs.
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