Taking advantage of Florida's "abundant local sunshine" with solar panels and preserving agricultural land and cutting stormwater runoff into the Great Lakes in rural Michigan. These and other regional definitions of what makes a building "green" will be part of the United States' premiere green building standard, starting Monday.

That's when the U.S. Green Building Council will launch the third version of its LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for green buildings. Among a number of changes will be state-by-state Regional Priority Credits that can give builders extra points toward LEED.

The new version of LEED will also more heavily weigh "strategies...

Free. The word has defined American culture for over 300 years. (And it sounds so much more dramatic than "The Land of the Brave, Now 10 Percent Off!)

And to curb household energy consumption, utilities may some day give out free energy assessments and possibly some level of retrofits, according to Jim Parks, who runs energy efficiency programs for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District.

Speaking at an event held by TechCoire in Rancho Cordova last night, Parks suggested that one way utilities could get consumers past their ordinary state of inertia is to organize street-wide or neighborhood-wide assessments. Announce that energy efficiency experts would be there on particular day...