Please do not ban kratom it has saved my life along with numerous other people please don't force my hand and make me go back to the streets for pain relief from my amputation and other things that's wrong with me this stuff has helped me tremendously it is a lot of people tremendously even the FDA has said it safe please do not ban it sincerely alUnited States caring citizen...Dave Cates

Energy Efficiency Standards are one of the most effective way to reduce overall housing costs. If Virginia is serious about helping its citizens keep those costs down -- whether they be paying utility bills or otherwise minimizing the costs of maintaining their homes over the life of their residency -- then deploying ways to specifically assist them is critical. VA's building codes are woefully out of date. Members of the appropriate working group and committees of DHCD have, for years, consistently ignored the international standards and have left Virginians with few if any actual affordable options for ensuring their new home is as energy efficient to own and operate as possible. DHCD's Board has disregarded the clear intent of the current law. HB 377 is needed to make it even clearer that continuing to stonewall is not possible. I urge committee members who are serious about helping their constituents with this particular "affordability" issue step up and vote to move this bill forward. I am now a renter with limited options; as a homeowner for many years I paid for many EE upgrades. You need to do what you can to put the spotlight on how EE is the cheapest way to help people live comfortably and affordably in their homes.

The Polyisocyanurate Insulation Manufacturers Association (PIMA) represents North American producers of polyiso insulation. Manufactured in more than 40 plants across the US and Canada, polyiso insulation is the most common product for commercial roofing projects and is widely used for other building envelope applications for residential and commercial construction. PIMA support the regular review and adoption of building energy codes. Energy codes are a cost-effective policy for reducing energy costs for consumers, improving the comfort of homes and buildings, and increasing the passive survivability capabilities for building occupants during power outages. Importantly, energy codes represent an effective policy tool for the State to manage overall energy demand and costs. Buildings account for a significant portion of energy and electricity used in the State. By managing demand, the State can more effectively address both the challenges and opportunities presented by investments such as data centers and manufacturing. Unfortunately, the State’s existing building energy code review process has continually resulted in less stringent requirements than the current model code. The weakening amendments have resulted in a code for residential construction that is more similar in terms of efficiency to the 2009 IECC than current model code. Therefore, HB 377 would establish an important and necessary benchmark for the State’s energy code moving forward.

SUBJECT: In Support of HB377 Dear Del. Simon - I am writing to ask that you support HB377 to ensure new homes in Virginia have lower heating and cooling bills. As we all know, energy retrofits are expensive so it only makes sense to enforce the latest International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) on new housing stock. Supporting HB377 will pay dividends for homeowners and the community for decades. Failure to act will compound the backlog of expensive energy retrofits homeowners should do at a time when energy costs are rising more steeply than they have in a generation. Please vote YES on HB377.

I am writing to ask that you support HB377 to ensure new homes in Virginia have lower heating and cooling bills. The cost effectiveness of the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) has already been assessed on a region-by-region basis by nationwide experts. Pacific Northwest National Laboratories found that annual energy cost savings from fully implementing 2012-2024 IECC updates would exceed incremental mortgage costs. The 2024 IECC cut construction costs while saving energy. Virginians have supported those analyses with their federal tax dollars. A small minority of special interests should not be able to override these recommendations just to boost their profits. Please vote YES on HB377.

Please support this important bill to improve home energy efficiency and help address the climate crisis.

Dear Del. Simon - I am writing to ask that you support HB377 to ensure new homes in Virginia have lower heating and cooling bills. We have all seen our heating and cooling bills go up due to rising energy costs and more unstable weather events. Moreover, the cost effectiveness of the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) has already been assessed on a region-by-region basis by nationwide experts. Pacific Northwest National Laboratories found that annual energy cost savings from fully implementing 2012-2024 IECC updates would exceed incremental mortgage costs. The 2024 IECC cut construction costs while saving energy. Virginians have supported those analyses with their federal tax dollars. A small minority of special interests should not be able to override these recommendations just to boost their profits. Please vote YES on HB377. Thank you, Laura Ledwith 1003A Lincoln Ave Falls Church, VA 22046

I support HB377. Pacific Northwest National Laboratories found that annual energy cost savings from fully implementing the 2012-2024 IECC updates would exceed incremental mortgage costs. The 2024 IECC cut construction costs while saving energy. Virginians pay for these thorough analyses with their federal tax dollars. A small minority of special interests in the construction business should not be able to override these recommendations just to boost their profits while saddling Virginians with higher energy costs for home heating and cooling.

William Penniman, Reston, VA Based on my participation in the 2018, 2021 and 2024 code cycles: VIRGINIA NEEDS HB377 • BHCD last fully implemented the IECC in 2009, and Virginia’s code remains behind key aspects of the 2012 IECC. • BHCD’s make-up and practice of requiring stakeholder unanimity to remove past amendments or to add strengthening amendments keep Virginia behind. • After publication of a new IECC, BHCD takes roughly 3 years to publish its code update, plus 3 months to be effective, plus 1 year to enforce. • HB377 DOES NOT “WRITE BUILDING CODES”: It re-affirms the IECC baseline and permits modifications that leave the code “at least as stringent” as the IECC. It re-enforces laws that BHCD has ignored, including Section 36.99A requires building codes to protect the “health safety and welfare of residents” and to reduce construction costs “consistent with recognized standards of health, safety, energy conservation and water conservation” and VIRGINIA ACTS OF ASSEMBLY – 2021 SPECIAL SESSION I, CHAPTER 425 requires BHCD to consider proposals at least as stringent as the IECC based on the factors identified in HB377. CUTS RESIDENTS’ HOUSING COSTS • DOE and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) found: o Each IECC update 2012-2024 would save residents money (energy savings minus added mortgage costs) every year of a 30-year mortgage and beyond. o Just the 2021and 2024 IECCs would save Virginians roughly $11,760/dwelling (vs. VA’s 2015 code with weakening amendments) over 30 years. Cumulative savings from more efficient housing are huge. o The 2024 IECC reduces construction costs while increasing energy savings. o Building efficiency improves residents’ health, comfort and resiliency. • In 2024, HUD/USDA found that the 2021IECC would o save homeowners and tenants money “as long the property exists” (plus savings from the 2024 IECC); o benefit low-income, moderate-income and rural residents; o yield monthly energy cost savings 2-2.5 times mortgage increases compared to the IECCs for 2018 and 2009, with large savings in Virginia. HB377 WILL NOT REDUCE SALES • HUD/USDA determined that 2021 IECC standards (and thus the lower-cost 2024 IECC) will have small impacts on mortgages and downpayments; not negatively affect home affordability for low- and middle-income buyers they serve; pay for themselves. • Insulation is only 1% of the sales price and spread over a mortgage. • A builder can offset efficiency costs by adjusting other costs (size, designs, visuals, etc.); altering its IECC compliance path; or advertising the energy cost savings. BUYERS DEPEND ON STRONG EFFICIENCY CODES • As with electricity, plumbing, etc., buyers depend on code protections for efficiency: o Few buyers understand efficiency jargon (U-Factors, R-Factors, ACH, etc.) or potential savings from efficiency measures. o Builders don’t share buyers’ interest in future savings. BENEFITS TO TAXPAYERS, RATEPAYERS AND THE PUBLIC • Building efficiency reduces upward pressure on utilities’ rates to all customers. • It is self-defeating to allow new housing below IECC standards while Virginia spends or requires utilities to spend millions of dollars on energy retrofits every year. • Efficiency measures (particularly structural ones like walls and air leakage) are cheapest during construction and mortgages spread the costs. • Building efficiency will reduce CO2 and other pollution for 50-100 years.

I’m writing to ask you to please support HB377, a bill that would unambiguously require Virginia’s building codes to meet the most updated energy efficiency standards published in the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). The Virginia Board of Housing and Community Development (BHCD), the agency charged with maintaining updated building codes in Virginia, has failed to comply with its obligation to keep Virginia’s building codes even close to current building energy efficiency standards, due in large part to BHCD’s slavish adoption of local builders’ proposals to minimize their own upfront construction costs, to the greater expense and detriment of consumers and our environment. Virginia’s building code has fallen woefully behind long-accepted energy efficiency standards, in some cases by well over a decade. Allowing builders to avoid meeting prudent energy efficiency standards in their construction and renovation activities costs Virginians money in the form of higher monthly utility bills. And the impact lasts literally for decades, in light of the 70-year average life cycle of a building. The small marginal increase in up-front construction costs to builders from adopting the most current IECC energy efficiency measures is exceeded by the longer-term benefit to homeowners, renters and all other Virginians who live on an earth that is increasingly challenged by human-created climate change. Without even taking into account the clear environmental benefits of improving building energy efficiency, Pacific Northwest National Laboratories found that the annual energy cost savings from fully implementing 2012-2024 IECC updates would exceed any incremental added mortgage costs (which are a proxy for the cost impact as reflected in housing prices). Updating to the efficiency measures in the current IECC is certainly a good overall investment from the purely monetary perspective, even aside from the environmental benefit. HB377 would not rewrite building codes, as some have alleged. Instead, it would require that the BHCD adopt the most recent IECC standards as its baseline. There is no safety or other downside to adopting HB377 because BHCD would retain the flexibility to use its expertise to make whatever modifications or additions to the code it deems necessary for cost, safety and other purposes, as long as the energy efficiency result is "at least as stringent as" the IECC. It’s time to bring Virginia up to the building energy efficiency standards adopted by our geographic neighbors and the international community. Thank you so much for your attention to this important matter. I appreciate all you are doing!

My name is Natalie Pien and I am: a 40+ year resident of Loudoun County; a grandmother to 3 very young girls. I am writing to support HB377. HB377 is not a building code, but ensures that the most current building efficiency code as established by the International Energy Conservation Code, IECC, is part of the Virginia code. Virginia’s building efficiency code dates back to 2012. Virginians need homes that are built with the highest standards of energy efficiency. Otherwise, homes will leak/absorb heat from the outside raising utility bills and causing more pollution from power plants. Lower income communities in Virginia are particularly at risk when utility bills increase. Federal studies have shown that updated IECC standards will benefit low-income, middle income and rural residents whether buyers or tenants. I urge you to pass HB377. Virginians need you to act on their behalf. So does Virginia’s natural resources.