IECC appeals board recommendation is a loss of affordability for American families and low-income communities, fight not yet over 

The International Code Council’s appeals board rejected all appeals challenging the 2024 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) in a recommendation to the ICC Board of Directors on Monday night, doubling down on moves made earlier in the year to abandon the code’s traditional focus on efficiency in favor of provisions that will drive up the cost of building construction and the cost of housing for families across the globe. The recommendation must still be approved by the ICC Board of Directors. 

“The 2024 IECC code, with its problematic provisions, will drive up the cost of building construction with limited efficiency or environmental gain. The ICC Board of Directors now has a chance to do the right thing by reversing the recommendation from the appeals board and removing the provisions that were developed in a broken process,” said American Gas Association President and CEO Karen Harbert. “The IECC’s longstanding mission has been to improve energy efficiency in construction while ensuring that all types of energy are recognized in the energy code, goals that AGA has long supported, with natural gas utilities playing a significant role in increasing efficiency over many years. The abandonment of this goal during the code creation process, developed and pushed forward with serious lapses in due process, is a detraction from the important mission of the IECC and will hurt low-income communities and American families struggling to make ends meet. AGA calls on the ICC Board of Directors to correct the wrongs wrought in this process and to return the IECC to its efficiency-first mission.” 

The 2024 IECC code development process violated due process principles, setting forth a change in scope mid-process without stakeholder or ICC membership input, disrupting the balance of power between disparate interest groups, launching an ad hoc and off-agenda “Consensus Building Forum” (also known as the Omnibus Working Group), and blocking public input repeatedly, resulting in a failure by committee members to hear outside opinions.

Read the full appeal from AGA here.