In response to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA's) recent announcements that it would not be releasing the results of its 2007 Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey because of statistical errors and would suspend work on its 2011 survey because of budget constraints, the National Institute of Building Sciences will hold a hearing July 18 in Washington, D.C., to gather input from building-industry participants about their commercial-building-data needs.

Scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. at the American Institute of Architects, 1735 New York Ave. N.W., the hearing is open to all parties interested in presenting their views on the state of commercial-building-related data, current and anticipated data needs, existing sources of data, and potential future data sources. Participants may submit written testimony, oral testimony, or both.

The deadline for interested parties to indicate their intent to provide oral testimony has been extended to July 14 at 5 p.m. ET. Written testimony will be accepted until Aug. 2 at 5 p.m. ET. For guidelines and procedures for providing testimony, click here.

In the wake of the EIA's announcements, the National Institute of Building Sciences established an initiative to identify a path forward for collecting and disseminating data on all high-performance-building attributes—safety and security, accessibility, cost-effectiveness, water use, indoor environmental quality—not just energy use.