Washington, D.C. — The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is now soliciting comments on the first draft of the LEED for New Construction Rating System (LEED-NC), version 2.2. The first public comment period will be open through February 1, 2005.

LEED-NC was the first LEED Rating System, and has undergone one other revision since its public release. The previous revision, LEED-NC version 2.1, addressed only process and documentation issues and was not required by the USGBC bylaws and LEED Foundations Document to be balloted. This new version, LEED-NC version 2.2, contains substantive changes to credits and does require balloting. The process of developing LEED-NC version 2.2 was started over a year ago, and is limited in scope to revising existing credits within the current category structure (no addition or removal of credits is permitted in this version).

The changes proposed in this version of the Rating System would not apply to currently registered LEED-NC version 2.0 or 2.1 projects or any projects that register prior to the release of LEED-NC version 2.2. These changes would only apply to projects that registered after this new version is balloted by the USGBC membership and released for public use.

Anyone can comment on this draft, after registering a site user profile on the USGBC Web site. The USGBC will respond to all comments, and post the comments and responses (without commenter's names or organizations) to the USGBC Web site. If changes are made to the draft after this first comment period, a second public comment period will be held for any changes made. The resulting draft will go before the USGBC membership for balloting. The official public release of the rating system is expected by fall 2005. To participate in this comment period, visit http://www.usgbc.org/LEED/Drafts/drafts_main.asp.