In all likelihood, there will be a new Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities within the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a source from the National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH) told Green Building Insider. Legislation to create such an office recently cleared a Senate committee and would authorize hundreds of millions of dollars for two new grant programs to advance healthy homes at the local level. Although there are few, if any, sure bets when it comes to getting this type of congressional legislation passed into law, the source believes there is about an 80 percent chance that this particular measure will receive a presidential signature. Additional details about the bill are included in this edition of GBI.

Also in this issue, an industry group and environmental advocates have devised a plan for making homes greener through more energy-efficient appliances, there are plenty of new developments involving the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program to report, and a USGBC spokesperson has informed GBI that it is delivering copies of its new "Green Schools Guide" to an established network of leading state lawmakers. Also, GBI has profiled green building bills for another five states, an Allen Matkins attorney has advised construction professionals to go green early on in their projects, and eight new entries have been added to our calendar of newsworthy developments that are expected to occur in the green building community over the next several years.