Thursday, October 1, 2026
The Tumwater City Council agreed to table an ordinance that would require home sellers to get a home energy audit before listing a property for sale.
At a meeting on Tuesday, July 21, the council decided to refer the ordinance to the Equity Commission within 60 days and have staff report their findings back to the council within 90 days.
Sustainability Manager Alyssa Jones Wood said the ordinance requires sellers to hire an assessor to determine a property’s Home Energy Score, which is a standard for measuring a property’s power efficiency.
Jones Wood said the intent of the program is to help potential buyers make more informed decisions, encourage sellers to provide power efficiency upgrades, help lower utility bills and reduce carbon emissions.
The city aims to subsidize the program to help income-qualified sellers with the costs of hiring an assessor. Jones Wood said the city has budgeted $4,000 in subsidies to help pay the assessment fee, which is around $300.
The ordinance states if funding is not available to subsidize qualified sellers, they would be exempt from the assessment.
Jones Wood offered two ways to subsidize the program.
The first option is to fully subsidize sellers earning up to 150% of the area median income, up from the 80% threshold staff initially proposed in a previous meeting.
Jones Wood said the higher threshold would allow middle-income families to qualify for subsidies if they struggle with the audit fee.
She added the 150% threshold reflects standard local and state standards for subsidy programs. To simplify verification, residents could automatically qualify by showing proof of enrollment in the city’s Lifeline Program or federal support initiatives like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Women, Infants, and Children Nutrition Program.
The second option is a tiered subsidy with a lower cap at 120% area median income. Under this plan, sellers making under 80% of the median income would be fully covered by the city, while sellers earning between 80% and 120% of the median income would be paid for 80% of the evaluation costs.
Under this approach, the city and/or its regional partners would contract with an auditing agency to secure predictable rates, giving the city a reliable baseline to budget for subsidies.
Jones Wood said the region is already building out the infrastructure needed to support the program if Tumwater approves the ordinance.
She noted Thurston County has issued a request for qualifications (RFQ) for a national service provider to handle compliance with federal requirements, public education, information technology systems and compliance monitoring, as well as support the creation of a help desk.
According to Jones Wood, that contract is slated to go before the Thurston County Board of County Commissioners for approval in early August. She added the RFQ was done in such a way that any jurisdiction that passes their own Home Energy Score ordinance can opt in to benefit from and share the costs for the service provider.
If the city chose to opt in, Jones Wood said it would cost the city $18,083 in 2027 and $15,000 in 2028.
Before tabling the ordinance, council members weighed in on the issue.
Councilman Brandon Whedon said he expects more community feedback in the coming months, considering the timing of the county's pending approval of the service provider’s contract.
Process and timing were key issues for other members as well. Council member Kelly von Holtz questioned whether the city had conducted adequate public outreach, specifically in relation to the requirements of the HEAL Act.
Council member Angela Jefferson similarly asked if there was enough time to fully inform residents before the program takes effect in 2027.
Council member Peter Agabi suggested making the energy score voluntary rather than mandatory.
When City Administrator Paul Simmons told the council they did not have to make a decision at the meeting, Von Holtz suggested sending it to the Equity Commission so members could review the impacts of the program.
Before taking up the ordinance, the council held around 45 minutes of public comments, where 14 people spoke about the ordinance. Eleven people said they supported the ordinance, while three were opposed.
Among the 11 supporters, several represented local organizations, such as League of Women Voters of Thurston County, Thurston Climate Action Team, Restoring Earth Connection and community advisory group of Thurston Climate Mitigation Collaborative, whose staff developed a model ordinance which Thurston County jurisdictions are basing their own Home Energy Score ordinances.
Supporters said the ordinance would help combat climate change and protect home buyers, while emphasizing the relatively low cost to audit a house and pushing back concerns regarding implementation.
Opposing community members said the ordinance would impose unnecessary financial and bureaucratic burdens, worsen housing affordability due to the added fees, and put sellers at a disadvantage compared to surrounding areas. They also suggested making the ordinance a voluntary program.
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Honestyandrealityguy
No offense, but homebuyers with a half of a brain or more do their due diligence with their Realtor. This includes: inspections, prior bills HOAs etc. NO SURPRISES! We do NOT need to charge Sellers for more stuff that will seldom, if any help a prospective buyer. My opinion!
Thursday, July 23 Report this
CommonScense
If I was a low income home buyer I would certainly value this information/score. Utility bills have been going up and will continue to do so. This information is vital. In addition, if PSE is
a seller's utility provider, they have a number of cost share programs to help remedy those
leaky homes and other cost share programs to reduce the cost of installing energy efficient heating systems and more.
Thursday, July 23 Report this
2theroots
It needs to be understood that much to do about nothing that delayed this. The fee is on average $200 at a time where people are selling homes and bringing in huge equity. That is not going to break anyone's bank. Tumwater is bending over backwards to take the sting away for the lowest income families by subsidizing their fee. It is absurd that the real estate agents who don't like this say it will make housing affordable. Quite the contrary since PSE is proposing another 19% increase in our energy bills, it helps people know what they are getting into and plan for improvements that will help keep their home affordable. Honestyandreality guy - a home inspection does not produce comparable results across homes or reveal what the most effective improvements will be. Prior bills are meaningless people use energy completely differently in the same house.
Ms Van Holtz arguement that they were not following the HEAL act was conceded by her in the meeting to not be true when CM Swarthout read the actual ordinance as applying to 7 state agencies and not to cities. So I wish the reporter would not report things that were debunked. You also reported the one concern CM Jefferson made and not her repeated pleas that it be passed. Or the comments of the two other council people who wanted it passed that night. CM Agabi has heard previously and that night that studies show a voluntary program to be ineffective.
So one the hottest day of the year rather than address climate change we kicked the can down the road for another 90 days. We will never solve climate change with this lack of courage.
Thursday, July 23 Report this
sunshine39
Not sure if this is the editor's or the reporter's responsibility, but those percentages would
be a more meaningful if I understood the abbreviations in your chart, e.g. AMI or HES.
Friday, July 24 Report this
RondaLarsonKramer
The Home Energy Score is absolutely about affordability—if you buy a home that you can’t afford to live in, think how hard it would be to extricate yourself from such a mistake after you’ve already moved in. The score will help you avoid such a mistake: Thousands of dollars of long-term energy costs avoided in exchange for a couple hundred bucks up front. It’s a no-brainer if one looks at the issue closely.
This has been done in other cities, and in such cases, the fears voiced by realtors never came to pass. Those fears are normal. Change is sometimes stressful. But the score is now a tried and true method for helping with the affordability problem.
Friday, July 24 Report this
OlyBlues
This proposed ordinance is outrageous government overreach. If a home buyer wants to know the home's energy efficiency score, they can ask the seller to provide this and/or make it part of their negotiations. How disgusting to see the Democrats try and force more unnecessary taxes and fees onto homeowners! Tumwater city council should vote this down.
Friday, July 24 Report this
Southsoundguy
Dumb
Friday, July 24 Report this
Yeti1981
I appreciate everyone's passion on this issue, but I think some of the arguments being made oversimplify what is actually a fairly complex policy discussion.
First, saying "it's only $200" isn't an affordability analysis. Housing affordability isn't determined by one fee. It's determined by the cumulative effect of every tax, fee, permit, inspection, mandate, and regulation added to the cost of buying and selling a home. Individually they may seem insignificant. Collectively they add thousands of dollars to the cost of homeownership. And if the fee is truly insignificant, why are cities discussing taxpayer-funded subsidies to cover it? The existence of a subsidy acknowledges that the cost matters for at least some homeowners.
Second, the debate isn't whether energy information has value. It does. The question is whether government should require every seller to purchase that information as a condition of selling their home. Those are two very different questions.
Third, buyers already have numerous ways to evaluate a home's operating costs, including inspections, utility bill histories, the age and condition of HVAC systems, insulation, windows, roofing, and contractor evaluations. A Home Energy Score may provide another standardized data point, but it's inaccurate to suggest buyers are otherwise left in the dark.
Fourth, I keep seeing claims that "this has been done elsewhere and the Realtors' concerns never came to pass." I don't believe the evidence supports making that statement. One of the largest real-world studies on this topic came from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Unlike modeling studies that project what might happen, it examined more than 26,000 actual home sales where Home Energy Scores were used. It found that homes with higher scores generally sold for modestly higher prices and that buyers of those homes were less likely to become delinquent on their mortgages.
Those are interesting findings, but they don't answer the policy question before our local governments. The study does not conclude that mandatory Home Energy Score ordinances improve housing affordability, that implementation costs are insignificant, or that the benefits outweigh the costs of requiring every seller to obtain a score before listing their home.
In fact, the findings raise another question that I haven't seen adequately addressed. If higher-scoring homes command higher prices, who benefits? Generally, it's homeowners who already have the financial means to invest in newer windows, insulation, HVAC systems, and other efficiency upgrades. What about homeowners who don't have those resources? They may own older homes, have fewer options to make improvements, and now face another mandatory cost before they can even sell their property.
That concerns me because it has the potential to widen the gap between those who can easily afford these requirements and those who can't. The people most affected by additional mandates are often the very people with the fewest resources to absorb them.
Finally, I'd caution against assuming our region will experience the same costs as larger metropolitan areas. I've spoken with local inspectors during our research, and several indicated they wouldn't leave the shop for less than about $400 once travel time, certification, reporting requirements, insurance, and overhead are factored in. Whether the market ultimately settles there remains to be seen, but assuming Portland pricing automatically applies to Thurston County is speculation, not evidence.
If our goal is to reduce energy consumption and help families lower their utility bills, perhaps we should focus on helping homeowners make energy improvements rather than creating another requirement at the point of sale. That approach would address the underlying problem instead of adding another mandate to an already expensive housing market.
Friday, July 24 Report this
nkhloly
This home energy score seems like a good thing to me. Why make a huge purchase and not know what you’re really buying? It’s a trusted way to know what it costs to run a home. And it saves us from surprises and scams. The city should help buyers and sellers make a fair deal.
Friday, July 24 Report this
RondaLarsonKramer
@Yeti1981, I think you're framing this as if reducing consumer information protects affordability. I see it the opposite way: ordinary buyers benefit when they have more standardized, comparable information before making one of the biggest purchases of their lives.
It really comes down to a simple question: does standardized information help buyers make better decisions? The evidence says yes.
No one is claiming a Home Energy Score solves housing affordability. It's a disclosure that lets buyers compare homes before making an offer. Buyers can already gather bits of information from inspections and utility bills, but that's not the same as having a consistent, apples-to-apples metric.
If some homeowners need help paying for the score, that's an argument for targeted assistance—not for denying every buyer standardized information.
Sunday, July 26 Report this
36098501
Yeti1981 provided a great summary.
RhondaLarsonKramer – Respectfully, people deserve far more credit for their ability to obtain information without local governments needing to find ways to get involved. As I’m sure you, and other commenters, are aware of, our local governments don’t have a great track record when it comes to making life here easier or more affordable.
The problem with this ordinance is not the fee, nor the concern about energy efficiency. It is the philosophy behind it.
This proposal rests on a remarkably condescending assumption that buyers, sellers, inspectors, lenders, and realtors cannot manage the process on their own, or be trusted to exchange information and negotiate freely.
Government must standardize it, certify it, subsidize it, require it, then tax to pay for it.
The question is no longer whether citizens are capable of making informed decisions. The question is only how much government oversight should accompany private transactions and how much tax revenue can local government extract from the community.
That is the uncomfortable reality of governance increasingly on display locally. It does not lead to equity, sustainability or affordability, or even a good ending. It becomes extremely fragile and will ultimately implode on itself. Note Evergreen. Timberland Library. Port of Olympia. Downtown. Management of the Homeless Affordability.
Every expansion of local government seems to arrive wrapped in the same three words: equity, sustainability, affordability. Those words have become rhetorical shields. Once invoked, normal questions about cost, tradeoffs, effectiveness, unintended consequences, individual choices and personal responsibility are treated as obstacles instead of essential parts of the discussion and policymaking.
Every regulation creates another administrative process. Every administrative process requires oversight. Every oversight function becomes another permanent institution with an incentive to expand its own relevance. Government rarely shrinks under that model. It compounds and becomes expensive and unsustainable.
If government may require an energy score because officials believe it serves a worthy social purpose, why stop there?
Why not a Neighborhood Equity Score?
A Personal Climate Risk Score?
A Personal Transportation Impact Score?
A Seller Responsibility Rating?
A Buyer Preparedness Certification?
A Personal Social Score?
That is why this debate matters, and also why it is not allowed to happen locally.
Ironically, these policies almost always hurt the very people they claim to help. The affluent barely notice another requirement. The professional class navigates another process. The people who pay are first-time buyers, retirees, and working families already squeezed by taxes, insurance, mortgage rates, and inflation.
Policies promoted as equity become additional costs. Policies promoted as affordability make housing more expensive. Policies promoted as sustainability expand bureaucracy instead of opportunity.
This is the predictable consequence of living in a government town with so many people involved in policy making, lawyers, lobbyists and various political organizations.
When public administration becomes the dominant profession and perspective, government policy gradually becomes the default answer to every question. The instinct is no longer to ask whether government should intervene, but only how government should intervene. The best solution is often personal responsibility.
Strong communities need private sector economists, entrepreneurs, builders, lenders, manufacturers, accountants, and business owners in the discussion - not simply more administrators, lawyers, lobbyists and organizations designing systems for other administrators to manage. Diversity of professional experience and expertise is critically important in the process. Without it, government develops blind spots that create the unintended consequences locally that also become expensive for everyone further hurting affordability.
That is why arguments like this matter before they become routine. Freedom is rarely surrendered in one dramatic act. It disappears incrementally, one reasonable requirement, one modest fee, one harmless form, one well-intentioned ordinance at a time.
Monday, July 27 Report this
ViaLocal
I am happy that Tumwater is taking this seriously. With data centers trying to pop up everywhere, it is now more important than ever to know how much you should expect your home energy costs to be. Especially because under this corrupt administration, who knows how much companies like PSE will hike prices and try to mislead consumers into thinking it's their own energy use increasing the bill. Also glad that Tumwater consulted the Equity Commission to review this! Makes perfect sense
Monday, July 27 Report this
RondaLarsonKramer
@36098501, no one is arguing that buyers are incapable of making informed decisions. The point is that markets work better when buyers have standardized, comparable information.
By your logic, we shouldn't have nutrition labels, MPG (miles per gallon) ratings, or standardized financial disclosures because people can figure those things out on their own. Yet those disclosures exist because they reduce information gaps and make comparisons easier.
And yes, people absolutely deserve credit for doing their homework. But not every buyer has the time, expertise, or resources to evaluate insulation levels, air leakage, HVAC efficiency, and projected energy costs on every house they're considering—especially first-time buyers or older adults. A standardized score doesn't replace personal responsibility; it supports it.
You also make a classic slippery slope argument. But we don't evaluate a policy by imagining increasingly unrelated requirements.
A Home Energy Score provides standardized information directly related to the cost of owning and operating a home. That's why it's relevant to a real estate transaction. A "Neighborhood Equity Score" or "Personal Social Score" isn't related to the cost of owning a home.
The question isn't "Where does it stop?" The question is whether this particular disclosure gives buyers useful information about one of the largest ongoing costs of homeownership. I think it clearly does.
Wednesday, July 29 Report this
36098501
RhondaLarsonKramer - I think your response unintentionally illustrates the specific philosophical divide I’m most concerned about in our community.
The issue isn't whether information is valuable. Of course it is. The question is who gets to decide what information every citizen must obtain, its value, who pays for it, and when government is justified in inserting itself into a private transaction. I think individuals are much more capable of doing this than the government.
The comparison to nutrition labels, MPG ratings, and financial disclosures is frequently made in community discussions, but it isn't analogous at even the most basic level to what is being considered in this instance . Those requirements address genuine market information asymmetries, or situations where manufacturers or corporations possess material information consumers cannot reasonably discover on their own.
A home's energy performance is fundamentally different. Buyers have access to inspectors, energy auditors, utility use histories, HVAC evaluations, and voluntary Home Energy Scores. Sellers who believe an energy score adds value are already free to obtain one, and buyers can do the same if they choose. The market provides these tools even without government compelling every transaction to bear another mandated cost.
My argument is characterized as a "classic slippery slope," but that characterization is misplaced. Simply assigning the label of a logical fallacy does not rebut an argument. A slippery slope asserts an unsupported chain of inevitable consequences. I argued something fundamentally different.
My argument is that institutions respond predictably to incentives, government authority tends to expand rather than contract, and each exercise of governmental power establishes precedent that lowers the threshold for future intervention. That is an institutional analysis grounded in public administration, economics, regulatory history, and public choice theory and definitely not a slippery slope. Unfortunately, we experience the consequences of this regularly in our daily lives.
Ironically, this is the very principle those of us in Olympia routinely invoke when opposing federal intrusion into state and local affairs. Local leaders rightly argue that every expansion of federal authority establishes precedent for further intervention. The same institutional logic applies here. If that reasoning is valid when protecting local government from federal overreach, it is equally valid when protecting citizens from unnecessary expansion of local government authority.
Principles should not change simply because the level of government changes.
Thursday, July 30 Report this
Yeti1981
@RondaLarsonKramer, I don't think I'm framing this as reducing consumer information at all. I explicitly said a standardized Home Energy Score can provide useful information. The question is whether the value of that information justifies requiring every covered seller to purchase it before listing their home. Those are different questions.
And I think “the evidence says yes” skips over the part I'm questioning. Yes, standardized information can help consumers compare products. But what evidence demonstrates that mandatory HES disclosure produces benefits sufficient to justify the mandate and its costs?
I've been digging much deeper into the evidence being used locally, and that's where my concerns are actually growing. For example, we're repeatedly told that Portland homes with HES were “10 times more likely” to receive an energy-efficiency upgrade. The underlying numbers being cited are about 8.8% versus 0.8%. So more than 91% of the HES group did not receive the cited rebate during the observation period. That difference may still be meaningful, but “10 times more likely” creates a very different impression if the absolute numbers aren't provided.
Thurston's projected benefits go further. The local model assumes retrofit rates of 10%, 20% and 30% and then uses those assumptions to project hundreds of retrofits, energy savings and emissions reductions. Those aren't observed local outcomes. They are assumptions driving a model. In fact, the published high scenario says 30% of 3,245 homes retrofit but reports 649 retrofits, which is actually 20%. I'm trying to obtain the underlying model to understand that discrepancy before drawing conclusions.
That's why I don't think this can be reduced to “does more information help buyers?” Of course information can help. The policy question is how much additional benefit this particular mandatory disclosure produces, at what cost, and whether the evidence being presented actually demonstrates the benefits being claimed. Thus far, my research is pointing to the fact that it isn't.
If the argument is simply that HES gives buyers another standardized data point, that's a perfectly legitimate argument to make. But then let's evaluate the mandate on that basis rather than attributing affordability, retrofit and climate outcomes to it that the evidence may not actually establish.
Tuesday, September 8 Report this