At the recent ASHRAE meeting in Atlanta, Mr. Jeff Littleton, ASHRAE Executive Vice President, stressed the importance of Standard 90.1-2010 edition achieving a 30% increase in stringency. There is some concern that the draft of the 2010 standard may come up short of that stringency goal. The Standard 90.1 was created as a result of federal legislation in the 1970′s to address our nation’s building energy situation. The Department of Energy works closely with ASHRAE and is also interested in seeing the 30% stringency goal being met. The DOE has suggested that if ASHRAE can not meet the goal, the DOE may be required to develop their own standard to achieve the 30% increase in stringency compared to previous ASHRAE standard editions. If the DOE does in fact try to develop their own energy code, they would not be bound by the consensus process that ASHRAE uses. This could limit industry input.