Alburquerque Case Study

In January 2008, Alburquerque implemented a new green building code that included energy efficiency requirements for air conditioners, furnaces, heat pumps and water heaters that were more stringent than U.S. Department of Energy requirements. The legislation prompted a group of heating, ventilation and air conditioning and water heating equipment trade organizations, contractors and distributors to sue the City to stop the new requirements from taking effect on the grounds that the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, National Appliance Energy Conservation Act and other federal laws preempt the City’s new building code provisions related to energy efficiency and the City did not have a waiver of preemption from the federal government.

Specifically, Plaintiffs argued that they would be harmed by the new legislation because sorting through conflicting standards will cause confusion and complying with conflicting standards will increase equipment costs causing consumers to repair rather than replace equipment and driving up the cost of new homes and other projects.

As a general matter, it is well-established that a federal law that conflicts with a state law will “preempt” the state law if Congress intended, either expressly or implicitly, to preempt the state law. Absent Congress expressly stating its intent to

Judge Vazquez acknowledged that the City’s objectives were “laudable,” but “unfortunately, the drafters of the code were unaware of the long-standing federal statutes governing the energy efficiency of certain HVAC and water heating products and expressly preempting state regulation of these products when the code was drafted and, as a result, the code, as enacted, infringes on an area preempted by federal