Soft Policies for Hard Problems: Implementing Energy Conserving Building Regulations in California

Recently California developed mandatory building standards designed to conserve energy. The standards, which foreshadowed similar emerging federal standards, were to be implemented by the state Energy Commission and enforced by local building departments. This study found that such hard-path, regulatory policies, which were opposed by designers, builders, and building officials, could not be properly enforced because of the Energy Commission's apparent inability to overcome concerted resistance from those affected. In the face of such demands, the state gradually substituted soft-path training and education for designers, builders and building officials on how to understand and comply with the standards, in place of hard-path enforcement. The result appears to be relatively low levels of compliance. The paper shows how the application of policy implementation theory could have helped state authorities predict such outcomes, and would perhaps have led to other, more effective strategies for implementing building standards. The paper discusses a range of alternative implementation strategies that would rest on indirect, hard-path policies, which could be expected to win sufficient public support to help government agencies charged with enforcement withstand opposition from those affected, and avoid conflicts between state and local jurisdictions.