A good read in today’s NY Post by Jacob Gershman. An excerpt:

The green-building craze sweeping the nation isn’t so much a movement as a highly lucrative regime of payouts and misinformation. You could call it a moral-protection racket.
In fact, “green” buildings don’t even use less electricity.
In less than a decade, the US Green Building Council’s green-rating system, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design,or LEED, has become a dominant force. Whenever you see a plaque on a building claiming it to be green, that’s LEED.
This month, Gov. Paterson signed a bill mandating that all new state construction projects and major renovations conform to LEED-developed standards. In 2005, Mayor Bloomberg approved a bill (allegedly at the insistence of then-City Council Speaker Gifford Miller) imposing LEED on billions of dollars of public projects. The Obama administration is even drawing up a plan to get the White House qualified under LEED.
Overall, LEED regulations are now on the books in 45 states, including more than 100 cities. The USGBC has certified more than 3,000 commercial buildings, with another 25,000 projects in the pipeline.
But here’s the problem: LEED buildings don’t conserve energy. In fact, a LEED study commissioned by the USGBC suggests that certified buildings often use more energy.

The rest here.