USGBC Members and Stakeholders Speak at the GSA Listening Session

Melissa Gallagher-Rogers, LEED® AP
Director, Government Sector
U.S. Green Building Council

You know from grade school, college, and maybe even your Ph.D program that an A+ is no easy feat.

Federal agencies know that, too: GSA recently received an A+ on the OMB scorecard. The statistics speak for themselves.

• 19.2 percent reduction in energy use per square foot of space since 2003
• 13.7 percent reduction in water use since 2007
• 20.3 percent reduction in emissions since 2003

Obviously whatever they are doing is working, and we are thrilled that LEED has contributed to this success.

USGBC and its members spoke at a session yesterday complimenting the progress GSA has made. Dr. Chris Pyke, Vice President of Research at USGBC, offered comments about the federal government’s long history of using LEED as a common language to define sustainable buildings and a transparent framework for goal-setting, tracking and accountability for high performance federal buildings. Dr. Pyke reiterated that the consensus process for the creation of LEED continues to be the strongest part of our member organization with 22,000 public comments on the next version of LEED.

Army to Congress: LEED Doesn’t Cost More

Note: This blog was cross-posted from BuildingGreen.com
 
The Army is still going for Gold and Platinum despite recent legislation calling a halt to LEED spending.

The federal government has been one of the biggest supporters of LEED certification in the last few years, with the General Services Administration (GSA) requiring basic LEED certification for all federal buildings starting in 2003 and then upping that requirement to LEED Gold in 2010.

The military has been on the cutting edge of green building from the beginning. The Navy adopted sustainable design principles before LEED even existed, as we reported way back in 1998. The Army embraced LEED in 2006 and recently began the much more radical work of moving all its installations to net-zero energy, water, and waste. As Katherine Hammack, assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy, and the environment, put it to EBN earlier this year, "Energy security is mission critical."

Fort Carson is piloting net-zero energy, water,
and waste--and expects to meet that target by 2020.

It doesn't cost more

We feared that might all change when we saw that the most recent military appropriations legislation requires explicit justification for any spending on LEED above the Silver level. What's worse, this decision pretends to be about money but appears to have been made over certified wood credits. (Watch this space for in-depth coverage of the "wood wars" in coming weeks.)

Hammack is having none of it. In a call with reporters yesterday, she reiterated the Army's commitment to net-zero and LEED and gave an update about some of the progress that's already been made. "We're finding it does not cost more to design and construct to LEED" standards, Hammack said.

Read the full article on BuildingGreen.com »

National Defense Authorization Act Makes the Mission Harder For Military But Not Impossible

Bryan Howard
Legislative Director
U.S. Green Building Council

Congress recently passed the 2012 authorization bill for the Department of Defense (DoD) and included a provision that bans LEED certification at the Platinum and Gold level for DoD buildings. To be clear, this provision is irrational and misguided at best, and deliberately problematic for the leaders in the defense agencies at worst. But before reacting as if the sky is falling, it’s worth taking a deeper look at the “provision” and noticing that it isn’t really all that iron clad.

Nothing in the bill indicates that the Department can’t keep certifying buildings, since the provision only forbids certifying to the highest levels of LEED. Why certain members of Congress think that our military service men and women do not deserve the best buildings possible is unanswerable.

As background, DoD was one of the earliest users of LEED and has the largest number of LEED-registered and certified buildings owned or occupied by any federal agency. We doubt that the Department would walk away from a more-than-decade-long commitment to sustainability. DoD knows that LEED and building efficiency is delivering real savings to the department. In 2009, in its own Department of Defense Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan, DoD noted that energy use per square foot declined by 10 percent and total water consumption decreased by 4.6 percent, in spite of increased military operations.

DoD can still LEED certify to Gold and Platinum levels if there is no additional cost or they document a positive return on investment, which they have done and will continue to do. For example, earlier this year, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced that new Navy and Marine Corps buildings would attain a LEED Gold certification level beginning FY 2013 and would do so at no additional cost.

“It shouldn’t cost anymore, particularly in this economic environment, to build buildings that are sustainable than it is to build building that are not. It’s going to require some creative contracting and some creative building and construction practices, but I am absolutely confident that we will be able to do it,” Sec. Mabus said on Tuesday, May, 10, 2011.

We think the Navy and Marine Corps will be able to keep their commitments despite obstructionists in Congress. Hopefully, this will be a learning moment for some of our elected officials on how build sustainably and how to reach these higher levels of performance.

The one somewhat good thing in the bill is the request of a cost effectiveness study on LEED certification and other building efficiency tools, although it has been done before. A study released just this August by the General Services Administration (GSA) found their green buildings have 27 percent lower energy use compared to the national average, while reducing operational costs by 19 percent compared to the national average. LEED Gold buildings were singled out as being particularly high performers. We have no doubt that this new study will come to the same conclusion, and we are happy that this time the LEED Volume program can be specifically explored for DoD. We’d love to work even more closely with leadership agencies to certify more buildings and drive down costs.

Bottom line – our military will be able to continue its leadership on sustainable building and energy security, despite the indefensible actions of some of our elected “leaders.” Something tells me that they’ll be able to rise to the occasion.

Senators Urge Deficit Commission to Increase Federal Building Efficiency

Bryan Howard
Legislative Director
U.S. Green Building Council

As the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (JSCDR) continues deliberation on how to provide long term reduction to the national debt, nine Senators, led by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), urged the select committee to adopt a litany of cost saving measures that would make the federal government more effective and reduce federal tax payers' obligation to ineffective building operations.

The letter sent to the chairs of the select committee highlights the huge opportunity for reducing energy consumption.

“The federal government is the single largest owner of real property in the United States, with the General Services Administration alone owning nearly 2% of all U.S. commercial real estate. The federal government is also the single largest consumer of energy in the United States, spending more than $24.5 billion on electricity and fuel in 2008 alone.”

The letter goes on to outline a number of strategies the federal government should adopt, including building commissioning and updating federal building energy codes as a means of utility reduction and job creation.

In testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee earlier this year, USGBC highlighted commissioning as one of the most cost-effective strategies for reducing utility costs in buildings and encouraged its use toward greening the federal buildings stock. USGBC has also been a supportive of S. 963, the “Reducing Federal Energy Dollars (RFED) Act of 2011,” which Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) announced at USGBC’s annual Government Summit. The bill, which is supported by USGBC and many others in the building community, makes it easier for federal agencies to use private financing tools to pay for energy-efficient building upgrades, increases clarity of agency energy use, and allows for building design updates.

While the end game is uncertain, it is good to see that lawmakers are advancing common sense ideas that are good for energy efficiency and good for the bottom line of the federal government.

Final Budget Deal is Still Thin on Important Funding for Green Building

Bryan Howard
Legislative Director
U.S. Green Building Council

Late last week, in an effort to avoid the first shutdown of the federal government in 16 years, the Obama administration and Congress agreed on a framework to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year 2011 (FY11). The broader details of the legislation (scheduled for a vote later this week) have only recently been released.

The bill contains broad spending reductions in virtually every government agency and enterprise. In total, the Continuing Resolution (CR) cuts $38.5 billion compared to the funding from 2010. Some reductions are particularly severe, including those in the area of green building, and should concern green building consumers and advocates. Below is a brief list of these cuts:

Federal Building Fund at the General Services Administration (GSA)

• Cuts: Funding reduced by $1.6 billion below FY2010 levels. The CR provides $82 million for construction and $280 million for repair of federal buildings overall.


• Damage: While this gives GSA some flexibility to continue multi-year construction and renovation projects, funding reductions of nearly 20% will have a dire effect on private sector construction and will impede the ability of the federal government to improve efficiency in their buildings.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the Department of Energy (EERE)

• Cuts: Funding reduced by $408 million below FY2010 levels, with $1.835 billion allocated in total.


• Damage: As home of the Building Technologies Program (BTP), these cuts to the EERE could harm the development of technologies and practices that make buildings, systems and components more efficient, and less costly to consumers.

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

• Cuts: Funding reduced by over $150 million below FY 2010 levels for the HOPE VI program, with only $100 million allocated in total.


• Damage: Cuts to this program will limit the ability to leverage private sector finance to transform existing distressed or blighted public housing into vibrant and livable communities.

Sustainable Communities Initiative

• Cuts: Funding reduced by $50 million below FY 2010 levels, with $100 million allocated in total.


• Damage: This office supports a joint initiative with the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and provides grants to communities to better integrate transportation, land use and housing efforts. A 33% reduction will impact these programmatic improvements substantially.

A full summary of the bill is located here.

These cuts are by and large an improvement over the House of Representatives proposal (H.R. 1), but the effect that they will have on private sector construction is nonetheless chilling: limiting private sector investment in infrastructure and building improvements and hampering future innovation in the building industry won’t do much to create jobs, save energy and save money, the very things that we need the most.

Federal Shutdown Looming: Government Efficiency Continues to be Whipping Boy in House Budget Debate

Bryan Howard
Legislative Director
U.S. Green Building Council

With negotiations between the House and Senate failing to reach a breakthrough over a six-month spending bill for the rest of fiscal year 2011 (FY11), Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) and House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) have released a bill that includes a one-week measure that includes $12 billion in cuts. 

Among other provisions, the bill revives a $1.6 billion reduction at the General Services Administration (GSA)’s Federal Building Fund (FBF) based on the previous fiscal year 2010 (FY 10). As I have written before, similar cuts have been passed by the House of Representatives as part of H.R. 1, the Continuing Resolution (CR) of 2011, and would have an incredibly negative effect on private sector employment and sustainability efforts of undertaken by the federal government. 

Although the Senate and the White House have agreed to funding cuts, the inability to reach compromise on the specifics has brought about this one-week stopgap. If agreement cannot be reached on a longer-term bill by the end of the week it remains uncertain whether there will be even enough support in the House of Representatives to pass another short-term CR, which appears to be scheduled for a vote later this week. 

As it stands currently, the prospects of the federal government staying open for another week are looking murky at best.

For a summary of the bill, click here.

For the full text, click here.

USGBC Testifies on Strategies to Increase Efficiency in the Federal Government and Promote the Better Buildings Initiative

Doug Gatlin, U.S. Green Building Council’s Vice President of LEED, testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the how the General Services Administration (GSA) can eliminate waste, cut costs and improve environmental performance through improved building management and purchasing.

“With an inventory of more than 7,000 government-leased and 1,500 government-owned buildings – representing more than 354 million square feet of space nationwide – GSA has an extraordinary capacity to reduce the environmental impact of our nation’s buildings and save taxpayer dollars,” said Gatlin.

Joined by GSA Administrator Martha Johnson and other members of the real estate and business community, Gatlin provided Senators with a number of options to improve environmental performance while decreasing costs to taxpayers. He outlined a number of strategies including consistent funding to update, maintain and commission existing buildings.

“… commissioning costs, on average, $0.30/ft2 and generates between $0.25-$0.30/ft2 in whole building energy savings for a payback time of 1.1 years, and a 91% return on investment (ROI). This type of commissioning is arguably the single most cost effective strategy for reducing utility costs in buildings today.”

Jeffrey DeBoer, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Real Estate Roundtable, also joined Gatlin in calling for changes to the Energy Efficient Commercial Building Tax Deduction (179D) to make it more useable for existing buildings.

“As GSA develops its program to release excess properties into the marketplace, Congress should take complementary steps to enable retrofits of those assets by re-designing section 179D,” said DeBoer.

Changes to the tax deduction along with a number of other programs to spur commercial building efficiency were included in the recent Better Buildings Initiative (BBI) announced by the President Obama earlier this year.

To watch the full archived hearing or to read the full testimony click here.

For a detailed summary of BBI click here.

Related posts:
USGBC and the Better Buildings Initiative: How Do We Get Started Sooner?
Congressional Outlook Uncertain, but Executive Branch Opportunity Abounds