If this statement is true, why is it called the International Energy Conservation Code and why is it revisited every year and a half?

When it comes to energy efficiency, improvements in the IECC have been far outpaced by energy cost increases in recent years. In fact, new home energy efficiency required by the code has remained relatively constant over the past decade. During that time, a number of economic, environmental and societal developments compel the nation to boost the energy efficiency of its homes and buildings:

• States, localities and utilities are increasingly facing energy demand that equals or exceeds energy supply and a public that resists new power plant construction. Energy efficiency is something that can be implemented in a short timeframe, delaying or eliminating many power plant projects that are necessary to meet future demands based on “business as usual.”
  
• Some energy-intensive companies have moved manufacturing and high-paying jobs overseas because of the exorbitant and volatile cost of US energy. For example, 169 chemical plants are currently under construction worldwide . . . not one of them in the United States!
  
• The challenge of rising greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) has become an international issue. 850 US mayors have signed the US Conference of Mayors Climate Agreement, pledging to reduce GHGs to levels required under the Kyoto Protocol. But those mayors can’t hope to meet their pledge without a significant contribution from the nation’s leading source of manmade GHGs: Not only do homes and other buildings make up 40% of America’s GHG emissions, but the McKinsey report found that making energy efficiency improvements to their construction represents some of the most cost effective means of CO2 emission reduction.
  
• Furthermore, the leading Senate climate change legislation (Lieberman-Warner) recognizes that buildings should be more energy efficient and would establish goals for substantial improvement in energy codes. It states that if the ICC is not able or willing to move the energy codes forward in significant fashion (30% or greater in the near term), the DOE will be given unilateral authority to amend the code to achieve that goal.

Shouldn’t our energy codes reflect the severity of these energy, economic and environmental crises? For many reasons – not the least of which is the decade-long practice of only taking small incremental steps to improve the code’s energy provisions – the time has come for a significant improvement in model energy codes.