NEWS RELEASE

Governors, State Legislators, State Homeland Security Directors
and Chief Information Officers to be Updated on Streamlining Actions
to Enhance Public Safety and Economic Development

Boise, Idaho – July 14, 2002. The National Conference of States on Building Codes and Standards (NCSBCS) and its 34 partners in the National Alliance for Building Regulatory Reform in the Digital Age in July are issuing a report to the nation’s governors, state legislators, and their homeland security directors, chief information officers, and state building code administrators. The report describes the progress made by the National Alliance over the past year to assist state and local building code departments in streamlining their building regulatory programs through the use of information technology. The mission of the National Alliance is to enhance public safety and economic competitiveness by enabling the nation’s construction industry "to build faster, better, safer and at less cost."

The Alliance was established last summer at a national forum held in Arlington, Virginia, which was co-sponsored by NCSBCS, National Governors Association (NGA), National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL), Council of State Governments (CSG), National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), National Association of Counties (NACo), U.S. Conference of Mayors, seven federal agencies, and 30 national construction industry associations. The Alliance this past year has developed a series of online information services to assist state and local jurisdictions in streamlining their building regulatory processes and enhancing public safety. Those services and other information on the Alliance are available on the host NCSBCS website at www.ncsbcs.org.

The report being issued this month by NCSBCS on behalf of the Alliance describes existing streamlining services and Alliance projects that are under development. The report also highlights services planned for delivery to federal, state, and local government and to the construction and information technology communities later this year once additional grant funding has been received by the Alliance. The report is being distributed via email and a CD-ROM.

Among the services currently available online from the Alliance described in the report are:

    1. A "Building Regulatory Software Listing" which describes software currently available to state and local jurisdictions to facilitate their building regulatory processes.
    2. A listing of existing regulatory streamlining models that use information technology and are being successfully used by state and local governments across the nation.
    3. The outline of a proposed secure nationwide state-maintained database for first responders that contains as-built designs, evacuation plans, and key contact information for critical structures.

Under development by NCSBCS and its Alliance partners are:

    1. An online listing of state and local jurisdictions that have already successfully adopted and are using software to streamline their building regulatory systems.  This listing will include software costs and performance reviews, and information on how to successfully go about funding a community's use of hardware and software for the building regulatory process.
    2. A new Alliance Task Force on Affordable Housing to expedite the dissemination of information on software and streamlining to building departments that regulate the design and construction of housing.
    3. A guidebook for rural communities as to how to streamline their building regulatory processes to enhance public safety and reduce the cost of construction.

In addition to the above, the NCSBCS/Alliance report to the states includes:

    1. Contact information on The Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP), a coalition of 80 national organizations and federal agencies in the construction community coordinating their disaster response and terrorism protection efforts.
    2. A copy of a major presentation on the National Alliance to the McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Summit held in Washington, D.C., June 6-7, 2002.
    3. Information on how states and localities can develop cooperative agreements to provide mutual aid in the event of manmade or natural disasters.
    4. Registration and other information on the Second National Forum on Building Smarter in the Digital Age to be held in Louisville, Kentucky, October 20-22, 2002, in conjunction with the NCSBCS 35th Annual Conference and annual meeting of the Association of Major City/County Building Officials.  (The forum will include demonstrations of software being used by jurisdictions and work sessions on homeland security.)

The National Alliance update report is the second in a series of annual reports provided by NCSBCS to the nation’s governors and state CIO’s. Last year’s report, "The Time Is Now" was issued by NCSBCS on a CD-ROM to the nation’s governors attending the NGA E-Governance Task Force session at the NGA annual meeting in Providence, Rhode Island.

Additional information on the National Alliance, NCSBCS, and a copy of their upcoming report can be obtained by visiting the NCSBCS website – www.ncsbcs.org – or by contacting Carolyn Fitch at NCSBCS (phone 703 437-0100 ext. 238; email cfitch@ncsbcs.org.)

 

NCSBCS was founded by the nation’s governors in 1967 to promote the development of an efficient, cooperative system of building regulations to ensure the health, safety and welfare of the public within the built environment. NCSBCS provides technical support to the National Governors Association under a 21-year-old executive branch agreement. NCSBCS provides secretariat service to the National Alliance through inkind contributions from Alliance members and a grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology