The program features hands-on demonstrations of hardware and software being used by state and local building departments in their online permitting, plans submittal, plans review, and field inspections processes and includes discussions of actions being taken at the national level to make those products interoperable. Other subjects being covered at the October 19-22 conference include:

• The use of building rehabilitation codes to revitalize communities;

• Building seismic safety provisions in construction codes;

• How the ISO Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule is addressing delays in state and local code adoptions;

• Construction industry safety expertise that is being made available to state and local building departments and homeland security directors by The Infrastructure Security Partnership;

• Business one-stop processes for codes enforcement;

• Models of effective cooperation between building and fire departments;

• How state and local governments are assembling and adopting a compatible family of construction codes; and

• A look at significant changes in the future of the regulatory system that oversees the design and construction of buildings in this nation.

Invited guest speakers and moderators include: Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski; Deborah Wince-Smith, President of the Council on Competitiveness; James Lee Witt, former Director of Federal Emergency Management Agency and new CEO of the International Code Council; Cathilea Robinett, Executive Director of the Center for Digital Government; Norbert Young, McGraw-Hill, publishers of Engineering News Record; and Gerry Wethington, President of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers.

Regulatory streamlining initiatives that make use of information technology will be featured at the conference’s special one-day session on October 20, "The Third National Forum on Building Smarter in the Digital Age." That program will share with attendees progress being made in Oregon on their streamlined business one-stop process project and focus on recent work products released by the National Alliance for Building Regulatory Reform in the Digital Age including:

• model procurement guidelines for purchase of hardware and software used in the codes administration and enforcement processes;

• model enabling legislation and streamlining processes for state or local building departments;

• online guide to jurisdictions that can provide assistance to jurisdictions planning on using information technology;

• model "interoperability statement" that jurisdictions can use in their procurements of the shelf software for online permitting systems; and

• successful examples of how to work with your construction community and public to build support for undertaking regulatory streamlining and acquiring information technology.

Oregon’s Department of Consumer and Business Services, Building Codes Division, and the City of Portland’s Bureau of Development Services are co-hosting the Joint NCSBCS/AMCBO Annual Conference and Third National Forum. The State of Oregon is awarding CEU credits to their state’s building officials who participate in the conference and the Oregon Chapter of the American Institute of Architects also is awarding CEU’s to their members who participate.