[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
BUILDING GREEN, SAVING GREEN: CONSTRUCTING SUSTAINABLE AND ENERGY-
EFFICIENT BUILDINGS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SELECT COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
AND GLOBAL WARMING
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 14, 2008
__________
Serial No. 110-37
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the Select Committee on
Energy Independence and Global Warming
globalwarming.house.gov
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SELECT COMMITTEE ON ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
AND GLOBAL WARMING
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts, Chairman
EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
JAY INSLEE, Washington Wisconsin, Ranking Member
JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona
HILDA L. SOLIS, California GREG WALDEN, Oregon
STEPHANIE HERSETH SANDLIN, CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
South Dakota JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma
EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
JOHN J. HALL, New York
JERRY McNERNEY, California
------
Professional Staff
Gerard J. Waldron, Staff Director
Aliya Brodsky, Chief Clerk
Thomas Weimer, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hon. Edward J. Markey, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, opening statement............... 1
Prepared Statement........................................... 3
Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in Congress
from the State of Wisconsin, opening statement................. 5
Hon. Earl Blumenauer, a Representative of Congress from the State
of Oregon, opening statement................................... 6
Prepared Statement........................................... 8
Hon. John Sullivan, a Representative of Congress from the State
of Oklahoma, opening statement................................. 10
Hon. Hilda Solis, a Representative of Congress from the State of
California, opening statement.................................. 10
Hon. Jay Inslee, a Representative of Congress from the State of
Washington, opening statement.................................. 11
Hon. Emanuel Cleaver II, a Representative of Congress from the
State of Missouri, prepared statement.......................... 13
Hon. Marsha Blackburn, a Representative of Congress from the
State of Tennessee, prepared statement......................... 15
Witnesses
Hon. Gavin Newsom, Mayor, City of San Francisco, California...... 17
Prepared Statement........................................... 20
Answers to submitted questions............................... 93
Mr. Kent Peterson, President, American Society of Heating,
Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers................... 29
Prepared Statement........................................... 32
Answers to submitted questions............................... 104
Mr. Edward Norton, Trustee, Enterprise Foundation................ 40
Prepared Statement........................................... 44
Answers to submitted questions............................... 117
Ms. Michelle Moore, Senior Vice President for Policy and Market
Development, U.S. Green Building Council....................... 53
Prepared Statement........................................... 56
Answers to submitted questions............................... 136
Mr. Tony Stall, Vice President of Marketing, Dryvit Systems, Inc. 71
Prepared Statement........................................... 74
BUILDING GREEN, SAVING GREEN: CONSTRUCTING SUSTAINABLE AND ENERGY-
EFFICIENT BUILDINGS
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 2008
House of Representatives,
Select Committee on Energy Independence
and Global Warming,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 2:03 p.m., in Room
2358A, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward J. Markey
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Markey, Blumenauer, Inslee, Solis,
Cleaver, Sensenbrenner, and Sullivan.
Staff Present: Joel Beauvais.
The Chairman. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Select
Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
Today's hearing is a most important hearing because it
deals with an issue that most people aren't really aware of.
Because if you ask most people what contributes up to one-half
of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, they will likely say
automobiles, SUVs. But the truth is as plain as the wall that
each of us faces right now: The building sector is responsible
for up to 48 percent of our Nation's emissions. On a local
level, buildings can account for an even higher percentage of
emissions. Seventy-eight percent of Boston's heat-trapping
gases are attributable to buildings.
Energy-efficient buildings must be part of a comprehensive
fight against global warming. Efficient design, low-emission
construction materials, and decreased energy use in buildings
can combat global warming and simultaneously reduce the rising
costs of lighting, heating and cooling structures.
Energy efficiency in buildings is only a starting point. A
truly ``green'' building should help preserve natural
resources. Water use should be minimized. Construction
materials should be nontoxic and travel shorter distances.
Appliances and furnishings should use less energy and fewer
toxic chemical compounds. Most importantly, we must ensure that
all buildings receive this treatment, whether they are new or
already built, commercial or residential, public or private.
Though measures to improve building efficiency can cost an
additional $1 to $5 per square foot, consumers could get a good
return on their investment. The average green building can save
25 to 30 percent more energy than a traditional one. The
overall economic and environmental benefits of more efficient
buildings are clear.
However, the competing interests of the building sector can
obscure the long-term benefits. A developer may have concerns
about recovering the initial costs of green design or energy-
efficient features. A commercial tenant may not want to pay for
efficiency upgrades on a 5-year lease. A homeowner may not have
the initial capital needed to improve home efficiency, or may
not be planning to be in the house for another 10 years to get
the full return on investment.
In a recent survey, only 7 percent of the public identified
buildings as a major source of global warming emissions. Today,
we hope to change that perception by discussing various
approaches to improving building efficiency.
The witnesses are collectively utilizing innovative local
approaches, materials, mandatory codes and voluntary guidelines
to reduce this massive source of emissions. Mayor Newsom has
sustained and implemented a myriad of green building
initiatives, among other notable environmental efforts in San
Francisco. The Engineering Society here today, whose mission is
to advance energy-efficiency technology, they have developed
building and energy codes used by local, State and Federal
governments. And the U.S. Green Buildings Council has developed
LEED, one of the most commonly used certification programs for
a green building. Enterprise Community Partners now helps low-
income housing, buildings with the tightest construction
budgets, become sustainable in a cost-efficient manner. And we
will also hear from Dryvit, a corporation working to improve
the efficiency of buildings with what they call Outsulation.
As a final note, I would also add that three of you are
actually seated, for a change, in environmentally friendly
chairs. These chairs were built from recyclable materials,
created using alternative energy, and can be nearly fully
recycled as well.
We thank each of you for being here, and we look forward to
your testimony.
Let me turn and recognize the ranking member of the
committee, the gentleman from the State of Wisconsin, Mr.
Sensenbrenner.
[The information follows:]
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Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Today's hearing on green buildings touches on many of the
same issues the select committee examined during last week's
hearing on energy efficiency. For the most part, policies that
promote green buildings is simply policy to promote efficiency
in building, construction, maintenance, and operations. There
are several reasons to encourage more productive uses of
energy. Improved efficiency gives us the ability to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions in the near term without enacting
punishing regulations that would cripple our economy.
According to the U.S. Green Building Council, buildings
consume 40 percent of the energy used in the United States.
That is more than both the industrial and transportation
sectors. Buildings are responsible for 39 percent of
CO2 emissions and 71 percent of electricity
consumption. As Tony Stall from Dryvit Systems will tell us
today, 80 percent of the buildings constructed before 1960 are
poorly insulated. Energy literally seeps through the walls of
these buildings.
It is clear that increasing energy efficiency in buildings
should be a high priority in our energy policy, but it
shouldn't be just a Government priority. With the potential
savings in cost that these energy savings would create, I think
that many building owners would want to make these
improvements.
Mr. Stall says in his testimony that his company's
insulation product will help lower annual energy costs by 10 to
20 percent. The Green Building Council says that energy-
efficient buildings could generate up to a 9 percent decrease
in operating costs, a nearly 8 percent increase in building
values, and a more than 6 percent increase in return on
investment. Who wouldn't want to reap those kinds of savings?
Unfortunately for my good friends in the majority party,
their legislation to date has not been where their words are.
In the energy bill passed during the previous Congress, there
were certain tax credits for energy improvements that many
people around the country have taken advantage of. I am one of
those that did that. I replaced the furnace in my Menomonie
Falls, Wisconsin, condominium, and I have been able to recoup,
in just a year and a half, the cost of the additional furnace.
We have not had global warming in Wisconsin. We had one of the
coldest and snowiest winters in the last 30 years there.
However, all of these credits expired at the end of last
year. And nobody facing bad gas bills, bad electric bills or,
if they heat with fuel oil, extremely bad fuel oil bills has
been able to do the type of work that has been given the tax
credit, because they don't know whether the tax credit will be
there when the time comes to file their 2008 tax returns.
Now, I am told that the majority party is going to put an
extender bill on the floor next week. I hope it is not stuck
with a whole lot of other things that don't relate to energy
and R&D tax credit. But the fact is that we have had almost 5
months slip by with no tax credits for doing these good things
on the books. And that is the responsibility of the majority
party, and they ought to put their legislation where their hot
air has been.
Now, last week I said that energy efficiency can produce
great results when encouraged, but, when mandated, these
policies have the same effect as a tax. Please note that I am
talking about tax breaks rather than higher taxes directly or
indirectly. And I think the same principle applies with
policies to encourage green buildings. The amount of savings
generated by energy-efficient buildings should be encouragement
enough for building owners to make these changes. I also think
that the Federal Government can help through R&D funding and
tax credits. Additionally, establishing industry standards will
go a long way toward ensuring that buildings, old and new, are
as energy-efficient as possible.
However, the Government should not take it upon itself to
be issuing mandates for green buildings, because that will be a
tax for many. Not only that, I certainly don't have confidence
that the Government regulators will mandate the best, most
effective energy solutions. It is not a stretch to think that
these regulations will be much less efficient than the
buildings that they seek to manage; witness our off-again/on-
again tax credit policy.
I think that a mechanism already exists in the U.S. economy
to encourage energy efficiency in buildings. The potential
savings that green buildings create, coupled with the rising
cost of energy, creates a compelling incentive for building
owners to improve the efficiency of their structures.
When it comes to efficiency, free-market forces are far
more efficient than regulations in turning buildings green.
While the regulations may make buildings more efficient, only
the free market and a more enlightened tax policy can make
buildings and their owners' wallets greener at the same time.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Again, witnesses, welcome to the debate here. You are
arriving at a historic time.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Oregon, Mr.
Blumenauer.
Mr. Blumenauer. Thank you.
I do want to assure my good friend from Wisconsin that we
will be voting for the fourth time on the extenders, that has
passed the House three times already, and I hope that we will
have, finally, some help on the part of the administration and
the Senate.
I take modest exception with the notion that regulation
from the Government plays no role. Look how the brilliant
market forces have encouraged our friends in Detroit to keep
pace with auto efficiency standards. Not. They didn't change
for 30 years. We finally re-established them this last year,
which I think we would all be better off had we continued to
move forward.
We need a balance between regulatory process and free
market. We are going to hear from California, where there are
some great initiatives that have taken place in terms of the
building codes.
I am hopeful that we, as a committee, spend more time on
this, because we are going to be replacing almost 200 billion
square feet of new offices, stores and other nonresidential
construction, and we are going to freeze that carbon footprint
in place for 50 or 100 years or more.
I am pleased with what we have done in our community. I am
hopeful we still get out to Portland to see what we have done
in terms of some of these green building initiatives.
I would like to enter into the record the Green Building
Initiative that the Portland Green Building--Green Globe's
rating tool that I think has some merit, because we have seen
that it makes a difference in our community.
[The information follows:]
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Mr. Blumenauer. But I would hope that there are two things
that we could focus on with the committee. One deals with the
location. Yes, businesses are critical, but if you have to burn
a gallon of gas to go to lunch, we are in trouble. And we need
to coordinate the green building with the green location,
location efficiency.
Last but not least, I am very interested in working with
this committee and our witnesses about what the Federal
Government does to lead by example. We are the largest consumer
of energy in the world; we are the largest manager of
infrastructure. The Federal Government has an inventory of 300
million square feet, scattered in 60 locations across the
country.
If we get serious, if we make a commitment that we are not
going to build, buy, lease or rent anything that isn't green-
certified with a twist in 2 years, it will have a
transformational effect and, I think, help bring to pass what
our witnesses will be talking about much sooner.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr.
Sullivan.
Mr. Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
holding this important hearing today on green buildings.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and I
appreciate you being here, especially Tony Stall, from Dryvit,
a leader in green building techniques. I am proud to have a
Dryvit manufacturing facility in Sand Springs, which is located
in Oklahoma's 1st Congressional District.
Last August, I visited this facility and was able to meet
with many of the hardworking men and women that make this green
technology possible. And it really is a fascinating technology.
Dryvit Systems began manufacturing exterior insulation and
finish systems in 1969 and was the first company to do so in
the United States. Today, more than one in every 11 commercial
buildings in the United States features Dryvit on its exterior.
Companies like Dryvit are innovating technology for both
commercial and residential buildings so that these properties
can become more environmentally friendly. In fact, homes that
use the Dryvit technology on their exterior can save over 40-
percent per year on their heating and cooling consumption.
I look forward to the intriguing discussion regarding green
buildings during today's hearing. And I yield back the balance
of my time.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from California, Ms.
Solis.
Ms. Solis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I would like to congratulate you for introducing us to
the new recyclable chairs that are here in our hearing room. I
hope that members will take that to heart, and hopefully we
will be able to have a demonstration of our own to see how they
fit. Because, lately, the chairs that we do sit in are very
uncomfortable and take up a lot of space.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for
having the hearing. This is a very important topic that we need
to discuss here.
And I am very concerned about what is happening in our
schools, some of our school buildings, particularly in low-
income areas. We have a lot of Title I-funded schools that are
found not just in urban and suburban areas but also in rural
America. And we would like to see more opportunity so that the
greening of America can also happen in our schoolhouses for
low-income and under-represented children.
But I would like to thank also our mayor, Gavin Newsom, for
being here from San Francisco, a leader in the green movement.
And also I want to recognize the City of Los Angeles. We are
slowly getting together the pace where we understand the
importance of what this all means. And in communities like
mine, in east Los Angeles, where a heavy burden is placed on
energy consumption and air pollution, many of the contaminants
that affect our communities are a direct result of greenhouse
gas emissions and all those negative things that have been
going on for years that we have been struggling to try to clean
up.
But, more importantly, I think where we live and work, in
particular in low-income communities--we have most of the
blighted areas. We have many warehouses that could be
retrofitted. We could find, I think, ways of even helping to
train our workforce to get into these jobs.
And that is something that some of us have worked very
hard, and I know the chairman has, in terms of helping us also
retool those individuals that live in our community through the
Green Collar Job Act. And that is helping to invest in our
workforce so that we have enough people that are going to be
out there placing and installing the solar panels and also
working in renewable energy.
So those are things that I care about and I know many
members of the caucuses that I work with are very interested in
hearing about. So I want to thank all of you for being here,
and look forward to hearing your testimony.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
The gentlelady's time has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington State,
Mr. Inslee.
Mr. Inslee. Thank you. I appreciate this hearing.
I just want to note three groups I met with this morning in
my office. It was just an accident that I met with these folks.
First, I met with some folks from utilities. We had one of
the presidential candidates out in Seattle yesterday who is
urging a massive expansion of nuclear power as part of our
baseload; correctly pointed out that it was zero
CO2-emitting. But this utility person reminded me
that in every single city and every single State and in every
single circumstance, efficiency in reducing load is always
cheaper than nuclear power, virtually any other system of
generation we have. And it was interesting to me, talking to a
person on the front lines, a person really in the utilities,
whose job it is to deliver electrons, the first thing out of
this person's mouth was: Efficiency first, because that is
where it's always cheaper. And this was right before this
hearing.
The second group I met with were sheet metal contractors,
and they told me that efficiency in building is the best job-
creation system we have in America, because it is not in China,
it is here. When we build efficient housing and green
buildings, those jobs are right here. They are not going to
China. They are right here. This is the one thing you can
assure, if you want a stimulus plan, spend money on
retrofitting weatherization and clean and efficient utilities
and heating and cooling systems.
The third group was the Environmental Entrepreneurs
Association. Some people may not have heard about this group,
but this is a group with several hundred members of companies
across America whose job it is to grow jobs in clean energy.
And these people are growing like gangbusters. And a
significant portion of them are invested in this type of
technology you are talking about, including findings ways--and
here is a great one--to sequester carbon in building materials.
There is a company out there, whose name escapes me, that is
close to finding a way to sequester carbon dioxide in cement.
And the scale of this is much larger than one would think.
So here are three groups who wandered by a lone
Congressman's office this morning, all of whom see economic
growth potential in what you all are going to talk about.
Thanks for coming.
The Chairman. Great. Thank you.
The gentleman's time has expired.
All time for opening statements from the members has been
completed. And we now turn and recognize our witnesses for
their testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cleaver follows:]
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[The prepared statement of Ms. Blackburn follows:]
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The Chairman. First, we will hear from Mayor Gavin Newsom,
who is serving his second term as the Mayor of San Francisco.
He is working to meet Kyoto Protocol targets through a variety
of ways, including green buildings. San Francisco has developed
energy ordinances, initiatives to build to LEED and other green
standards.
And I am also pleased to announce that Ameresco, an energy-
efficiency company in my congressional district up in Boston,
was awarded a contract to green the San Francisco Housing
Authority.
And, Mayor Newsom, we are very honored to have you here
with us today. Whenever you are ready, please begin.
STATEMENTS OF HON. GAVIN NEWSOM, MAYOR, CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO,
CALIFORNIA; MR. KENT PETERSON, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN SOCIETY OF
HEATING, REFRIGERATING AND AIR-CONDITIONING ENGINEERS; MR.
EDWARD NORTON, TRUSTEE, ENTERPRISE FOUNDATION; MS. MICHELLE
MOORE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR POLICY AND MARKET DEVELOPMENT,
U.S. GREEN BUILDING COUNCIL; MR. TONY STALL, VICE PRESIDENT OF
MARKETING, DRYVIT SYSTEMS, INC.
STATEMENT OF GAVIN NEWSOM
Mr. Newsom. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for this
opportunity. And I appreciate, to Ranking Member Sensenbrenner,
the debate and the passion and conviction that you have all
demonstrated in your opening remarks. This is a very exciting
topic, from my perspective, and an exciting time, and I
appreciate all your leadership and your conviction and your
constancy on this issue.
Green buildings--you said it, Congressman Markey, at the
top--this is one of the areas where we are not focusing enough
attention. And most people are not familiar with the costs
associated, not only with the operation of buildings, but the
construction and demolition of buildings, as it relates to the
environment.
In San Francisco, we began over a decade ago and became one
of the first big cities in the United States of America to
require, to legislate all of our municipal buildings to be
built to LEED certification. At the time, people thought,
again, another typical San Francisco idea, San Francisco
values, the sky is going to fall in, the world is going to come
to an end, major tax increases, companies are going to run out
of San Francisco. We heard it all.
The reality is it couldn't have been further from the
truth, and we are quite prescient now, for the same reasons the
ranking member said: We are paying less in energy bills, we are
paying less in insurance. And another big point I want to make
here today: Fireman's Fund and others are charging less for
insurance for some of our buildings that the city was wise
enough to invest in as it relates to these LEED certifications.
But that wasn't good enough. We represent as a property
owner a de minimus amount of office space in our city. So we
put together a work group in 2004 which came up with the first
standards in our city's history to advance some incentives for
green buildings, with LEED Gold certification.
What happened in 2004 was interesting. We fast-tracked
permits through these incentives, and we ended up having a
bigger line, a bigger queue for people in the construction and
building side of the ledger trying to get in the fast-track
permits for LEED-certified buildings than in the traditional
lines at our Department of Building Inspection. And it occurred
to us then that we have a much bigger appetite and a bigger
market for this than we had realized.
The consequence of our 2004 legislation is we decided to
more formally advance an initiative to require all residential,
all commercial, and all remodels that are done in the City and
County of San Francisco to meet similar LEED certification,
going to LEED Gold within the next few years.
It is the most aggressive green building standards of any
city in the United States of America. It was done with broad
consensus and overwhelming support. In fact, perhaps after
today, I will receive my first letter of opposition, but I have
yet to receive a letter of opposition from anybody.
It was an industry-led initiative, because they get it.
They know they ultimately need to get into this business. The
fact is, though, they need to be pushed into it. Some of the
largest developers in San Francisco, which happen to be the
largest developers across this country that do business in
almost every major city, they get it. They get it, because it
ends up costing them less, it ends up being more attractive
from a leasing perspective, higher occupancy rates. Businesses
get it, because that is why they want to go into these green
buildings, because they have greater workplaces, which drives
lower costs associated with sick days, higher morale. These are
objective measures that have been analyzed, and I hope you have
a chance to read some of these reports, which are
extraordinary.
This is inevitable, whether we like it or not. This is the
direction we need to be going. This is not difficult for anyone
to do.
The idea that the private sector is just going to somehow
do it, well, maybe. But the fact that the U.S. Government
hasn't done it is suggestive. And if the U.S. Government won't
do it, if you won't do it to save energy costs, and HUD won't
do it to save on $4 billion-plus a year they are spending on
electricity, for the life of me, I don't know necessarily how
the private sector is going to end up doing it on their own.
We, again, have been able to establish a framework where we
brought parties together. We did it in an environment which was
supportive of the private sector; didn't take anything away. We
have done it in a way where we have raised the standards and
raised the bar.
Now, by the way, we are doing LEED Platinum certification
on a lot of our new buildings, not even LEED Silver or LEED
Gold. In fact, We have a new one. The Academy of Sciences in
San Francisco is the largest LEED Platinum building of its kind
in the United States, where someone well described it as
lifting up Golden Gate Park, our park, and placing a building
underneath it and then placing the park right back on top of
the building.
And already in terms of its identity, already in terms of
its purposefulness, it is creating a lot of excitement and
enthusiasm. And it will be now the new benchmark, the new bar
for all subsequent construction.
So I am just here to say we have to get over the idea that
this is somehow extreme. We have to get over the idea this
somehow it is even controversial in this day and age.
And from the perspective that Congresswoman Solis said,
this is where the jobs are coming from. This is in the
photovoltaic and the solar and the energy retrofits. If we are
going to get serious about green-collar jobs, get serious about
the loss of manufacturing, get serious about environmental
justice issues, which Ed and others will talk about in a
moment, then we have to get serious about the opportunities as
it relates to the green building industry.
And I couldn't be more enthusiastic as a mayor of a city
where the people of San Francisco get it. Republicans and
Democrats get it. This is not about politics. They understand
the economic imperative, they understand the moral and ethnical
obligation, and they understand that this works.
And so that is, in essence, what I wanted to leave you
with.
[The statement of Mayor Newsom follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you. I appreciate it, Mr. Mayor. That
was great testimony.
Now our second witness. You know, when you are thinking
about energy efficiency, what is it that causes all these
greenhouse gases? Well, it is keeping this room cool in the
summer, making sure it is warm in the winter, making sure that
the food that we eat in this building is kept refrigerated
winter, summer, spring and fall. But if you can make it all
more efficient, then we will be all the better off, because you
could reduce by 30, 40 percent the amount of energy we consume.
We have with us today the president of the American Society
of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers in the
United States. And his organization, for 114 years, has been
advancing technologies in each one of these related fields. And
at the request of the Federal Government, his organization has
developed the first Federal energy efficiency standards 30
years ago, and they continue to develop new building and energy
codes used by local, State and Federal governments.
Mr. Peterson, welcome. Whenever you are ready, please
begin.
STATEMENT OF KENT PETERSON
Mr. Peterson. Thank you, Chairman Markey, Ranking Member
Sensenbrenner and members of the committee. Thank you for the
opportunity to speak to you today about energy use, buildings,
and the opportunities to reduce our impacts from buildings on
our climate change.
My name is Kent Peterson, and I am the current volunteer
president of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and
Air-Conditioning Engineers, better known as ASHRAE. We were
founded in 1894, and ASHRAE is an international technical
society with over 50,000 members in 140 countries. Our members
really represent the breadth of technical professionals in the
building industry, from building designers to building owners
to manufacturers and building operators.
You know, ASHRAE fulfills our mission by advancing heating,
ventilating and air-conditioning and refrigeration technologies
to serve humanity and promote a more sustainable future through
not only our research, but our standards writing processes, our
publications and our continuing education programs.
But turning our attention on today's topic, with increased
energy costs and climate change considerations, design guidance
related to energy efficiency is more important than ever.
Nowhere is it more important than in the building industry,
given that buildings do consume roughly 40 percent of the
primary energy in the United States.
Today, building energy efficiency still represents a vast
and underutilized energy resource within the United States.
Building energy efficiency is the single most important
opportunity for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.
In my opinion, today's buildings mortgage our energy and
environmental future. In the past, our industry really focused
on the minimum energy-efficiency requirements. But today, we
are really focusing beyond minimum energy-efficiency
requirements, into green buildings, what are the requirements
for people that want to build buildings that perform much
better than the minimum requirements required by code.
Given the concerns regarding climate change, our industry
really is undergoing a market transformation. It is going to
change the way that buildings are designed, built and operated.
In the past, we have been able to provide comfortable,
healthy and safe buildings. But on the flip side, it is the
energy consumed by these buildings that is helping fuel this
new crisis. And it is a crisis of global energy availability,
and it certainly is impacting us in the United States.
Unfortunately, the energy consumed by these buildings is
starting to increase. In May of 2007, it was the U.S. Energy
Information Administration that released a report that
projected that world energy consumption is projected to
increase approximately 57 percent from the year 2004 to 2030.
And while energy consumption and prices continue to rise, the
true costs of using energy are even higher when we consider its
impacts not only on climate change but on future generations.
The sad thing is that most Americans know how fuel-
efficient their automobiles are but very few understand how
much energy buildings consume. ASHRAE is working to change this
in a variety of ways. We are developing significant
improvements in the minimum energy-efficiency requirements in
ASHRAE's Standard 90.1, which serves as the basis for model
U.S. energy code for buildings today.
We are providing for advanced energy design guidance
through special publications, working with partners like the
United States Green Building Council, in trying to get this
information out to the marketplace as free resources, so not
only building owners but building designers, architects and
consumers understand what the possibilities are to build more
efficient buildings than what the minimum code requires today.
We are also in the process of developing a building energy
label that will provide builders and occupants with a standard
energy metric that can be easily compared across different
building types. It is providing these minimum code requirements
and above-code requirements is really what is critical to
provide improved energy efficiency in buildings in the United
States. We must continue on the path of our Nation's buildings
to be more efficient, but it is going to require significant
commitment from all the stakeholders.
I offer the following recommendations to ensure that we
meet future requirements and demands placed on our buildings.
We really do need to adequately fund the Federal agencies to
advance the development and enforcement of energy standards,
guidelines and technologies.
We should support research and development necessary for
the development and deployment of technologies necessary to
achieve our Nation's energy goals as we move forward. This
includes technologies that are going to be envisioned under the
Zero-Net-Energy Commercial Building Initiative that was
established in the Energy Independence and Security Act of late
last year.
Additionally, sufficient investments are going to be made
in research and development for renewable energy technologies
as we strive for net-zero carbon buildings and net-zero energy
buildings.
We also need to enact policies and encourage individuals
and businesses to implement energy-efficient technologies and
practices that go beyond the minimum requirements that are
required by the building energy codes today. This includes the
commercial building tax deduction and setting realistic
depreciation schedules for heating, ventilating and air-
conditioning equipment, which are currently set at 39 years.
We need to continue to support the utilization of voluntary
consensus standards and regulation and codes, as required by
the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act.
The Chairman. If you could summarize, please.
Mr. Peterson. Yes.
We must apply our knowledge and experience to really
provide effective, practical and innovative solutions as we try
to transform the U.S.-built environment to green buildings.
It has been an honor to testify before the committee, and I
welcome any questions that you may have.
[The statement of Mr. Peterson follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Peterson, very much.
Our next witness is Edward Norton, who is an accomplished
actor and native son of Boston. But he is here in the role of
trustee of Enterprise Community Partners, an enterprise
developing the first national green building program focused
entirely on affordable housing.
Mr. Norton has been environmentally active for many years
and recently worked to improve the carbon footprint of the
filming process in his upcoming movie, ``The Incredible Hulk,''
a green monster indeed. [Laughter.]
So we actually have one in Boston at Fenway Park, a green
monster. And now we have one in Hollywood that is working to
serve as an example for other movie-makers.
Mr. Norton, we are really honored to have you with us here
today. Whenever you are ready, please begin.
STATEMENT OF EDWARD NORTON
Mr. Norton. Thanks, Chairman Markey and all the members of
the committee. It is a great opportunity to testify on this
subject.
As you said, I am testifying on behalf of Enterprise
Community Partners. Enterprise, for those of you who don't
know, is a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to
ensure that all low-income people in the United States have the
opportunity for fit and affordable housing. Enterprise provides
financing and expertise to community-based organizations for
affordable housing development and other community
revitalization activities.
We have invested more than $8 billion and created 240,000
affordable homes, strengthened communities through hundreds of
cities across the country. And Enterprise also works very
closely on a bipartisan basis with policymakers at all levels
of government to develop solutions to low-income housing needs.
Now, I feel like I need to give a little context here. You
gave some. If you happen to occasionally go to the movies
during the summer recess, then you are probably wondering why I
am here. But Enterprise was founded by my grandfather, James
Rouse, and his wife Patty in 1982. My grandfather was a very
well-known urban philosopher, developer, planner, and a
champion of American cities. He was fond of saying that, ``To
build a better city is to work at the heart of a
civilization.'' And I have always tried to keep thinking of
that.
After retiring from his career in commercial development,
he spent the remainder of his life committed to expanding
opportunities for low-income people, and he was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom for this work in 1995 by
President Clinton. He was a great inspiration to me, he is the
main reason that I am here, and to all who knew him as well.
Enterprise reflects his convictions today and his
entrepreneurialism and his innovation.
I worked for Enterprise for a few years right after college
while I was moonlighting in a theater. And when the
moonlighting started to become a paying occupation, I went on
the board. [Laughter.]
So I have been on the board since 2000. And my principal
interest and contribution has been to push Enterprise to lead
on the issue of greening the affordable-housing development
model.
So hopefully now nobody will write this off as Chairman
Markey pulling cameras into his committee room and you will
indulge me in the actual testimony.
Obviously, all of you are well aware, as everyone here at
the table has been saying, of the impact that residential and
commercial buildings have on the greenhouse gas production. We
are very pleased that the committee is focused on buildings as
part of its leadership on climate change and energy issues
generally. And we feel, at Enterprise, that what we can speak
to specifically are the unique aspects of affordable housing in
this context, which is often left out of these conversations.
I think a lot of people assume that green practices are the
provenance of commercial real estate, and that is absolutely
not true, and we are determined to include affordable housing
in this conversation.
Enterprise recently published a white paper laying out a
comprehensive case for connecting affordable housing to climate
change and energy needs and solutions through a Federal policy
platform called, ``Bringing Home the Benefits of Energy
Efficiency to Low-Income Households.'' The paper is enclosed in
our written testimony, so all of you have it, and I will
address it only briefly.
Enterprise primarily works to bring benefits of sustainable
development to low-income people on a fairly unprecedented
scale through something that we started called the Green
Communities Initiative. Through Green Communities, Enterprise
is providing funds and expertise to build and rehabilitate for-
sale houses and rental apartments that are healthier for low-
income residents and more energy-efficient and better for the
environment.
Green Communities homes are built according to our Green
Communities criteria, which, before LEED even, was the first
national framework of standards and practices for green
affordable housing. We have invested over $570 million in this
initiative and have built 11,800 affordable green homes in 28
States, as of now.
We feel we have gained a couple of key insights through the
work.
The first is that green and affordable are not just
intertwined but that they are, in fact, inextricably linked
agendas, insofar as low-income people and communities suffer
disproportionately from housing challenges, energy costs and
effects of climate change.
The good news is that we can now demonstrate very
conclusively that those agendas to create and build green and
meet affordable-housing demand can be one and the same. We can
show that the costs are only about 2 to 4 percent higher, and
that this premium tends to come down for developers as they
gain experience.
We can show that most of the marginally higher costs
attributable to these measures generate financial savings for
low-income families, to whom those savings definitely matter
the most. In other words, those techniques do pay for
themselves in an affordable context, and usually very quickly.
We can show that greening affordable development at scale
does result in measurable improvements in health and reduced
health-care costs, especially asthma; that green and affordable
housing at scale reduces carbon emission very measurably. And
the evidence to back these assertions is included also in the
written statement that we have given you.
The other key insight that we have derived pursuing these
goals is that Federal leadership is essential and that a
national commitment to this agenda in affordable housing is
sorely lacking. We need national, bipartisan commitment to this
effort.
Our 10-point plan lays out key elements of what we think
that commitment should entail, and it is included in our
statement. But in the broad strokes, a Federal commitment of $5
billion a year over 10 years could deliver huge benefits across
the board: 25 to 40 percent energy savings in up to 25 million
residential units; up to 50 million tons of carbon dioxide
emissions avoided; and hundreds of thousands of green jobs
created annually.
This Federal commitment is relatively modest if one
considers that HUD, as Mayor Newsom mentioned, currently spends
more than $4 billion annually just to pay utilities in very
inefficient, Government-assisted properties. $5 billion is a
very small share of the projected revenues that would be
generated under proposals to curb greenhouse gas emissions
currently under consideration in Congress and supported by all
three major presidential candidates.
The solutions are definitely available, but there is no
more time, we feel, for small-scale, incremental progress. We
think that policymakers need to act with urgency and
seriousness of purpose, for starters. Congress just simply
should not allow taxpayer funds to support building of any kind
that does not meet a more demanding minimum standard for energy
efficiency and indoor air quality and lower carbon emissions.
To wrap it up, I mean, to make it a more personal
statement, I am sure that many of you saw, as I did, the recent
paper that was submitted by NASA's chief climatologist, James
Hansen. I met him with Congressman Markey, the other day.
The abstract attached to it argued that, and I will quote
him, ``If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that
on which civilization developed and on which life on Earth is
adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change
suggests that CO2 will need to be reduced from its
current 385 parts per million to, at most, 350 parts per
million.''
And that is a tough diagnosis, and it is a monumental
challenge. So the significance of these issues that you are
debating really can't be overstated.
We talked about this at the Earth Day rally, the other day.
I think that every generation is called on in different ways to
serve a higher purpose. I think I am the youngest person at the
table, and I wanted to comment that my grandparents' generation
rose up, faced a great war against fascism and totalitarianism.
My parents' generation carried the torch of civil rights and
social equality. I have very little doubt, personally--I am 38
years old--I have very little doubt that the legacy of my
generation is going to hinge on how we respond to these
revelations that we are not living sustainably and that we are
altering the environment.
And I feel very confident in saying that my generation and
even those younger than us have truly embraced this as our
cause and that we are ready to rise to this challenge. But
bluntly, we are not yet running things; you are. And this is a
problem, because the scale of this challenge is going to
require bold action on a national level. And our generation
does not want to be told to ``go shopping'' right now. We are
ready to sacrifice, as our parents and grandparents did. We
want to do nation-building, but we want to start at home by
playing our part in creating the next prosperous American
century.
But somebody has got to call on us to do this by defining
this as a test of our American character, much as Lincoln and
Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy and other great leaders
did in their time. And we need it clearly articulated as a
national priority, and we need the bar set very high, much
higher than it has been, because timidity is going to squander
our generation's resolve and resourcefulness.
So all of us at Enterprise commend you for convening this
hearing, and we are available to answer any questions. Thank
you for the opportunity.
[The statement of Mr. Norton follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Norton, very much.
In fact, your grandfather, James Rouse, came to Boston in
the middle of the 1960s and looked at our oldest buildings--
Fanueil Hall, Quincy Market--and said, ``We can take those old
buildings and redesign them for the 20th and the 21st
century.''
Mr. Norton. He would have done them more efficiently if he
had known what we know now.
The Chairman. But even with his vision, though, he did that
in Baltimore. He went city after city and took the oldest
structures and redesigned them for the new era. And you are
here following in his footsteps, asking for us to do it once
again for the 21st century, and we thank you.
Mr. Norton. Thanks for the opportunity.
The Chairman. Our next witness, Michelle Moore, is senior
vice president of policy and market development of the U.S.
Green Building Council. This council develops the LEED
standard, one of the most popular green building certification
programs in the country.
We welcome you, Ms. Moore. Whenever you are ready, please
begin.
STATEMENT OF MICHELLE MOORE
Ms. Moore. Thank you very much. And thank you so much not
only for giving us the opportunity to address you here today
with so many colleagues and leaders from around the world on
this topic, but also for your explicitly stated intent to raise
the level of awareness of green buildings as a source of
solutions for climate change, for energy and a myriad of other
issues.
As Americans, we spend 90 percent of our time indoors. Our
buildings have an extraordinary, if little understood, impact
on our health and well-being. And there are so many issues that
they are able to help us address.
So, to begin with, just a little bit about the U.S. Green
Building Council. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We
have been in existence for about 15 years. And USGBC's mission
is the market transformation of the built environment to
sustainability. And that concept of market transformation is
extraordinarily important in understanding the intent and,
really, the uses of the LEED green building rating system,
which many of the other speakers here today have referenced.
Our membership is composed of, to date, about 16,000
organizational members. So those are companies, educational
institutions and governmental agencies who are a part not only
of USGBC as an organization but who also participate in the
consensus process that develops and advances the LEED rating
system.
Our vision in creating LEED and our intent in its use is
that it would set a high bar, challenge the leaders and
innovators in the marketplace to achieve it, and, in doing so,
gradually raise the floor of the industry.
Now, in the climate in which we currently exist, obviously
the U.S. Green Building Council feels a tremendous sense of
urgency associated with energy and climate, again, like so many
of the colleagues on the panel here today. And that sense of
urgency is expressed in our work.
And if you had an opportunity to read the written testimony
that I shared, there has been extraordinary growth in the green
building marketplace, certainly over the course of the past 8
years since the introduction of the LEED green building rating
system.
USGBC's growth is a reasonable proxy for understanding how
the market has been pacing forward, by every measure, by
registered and certified buildings, membership in USGBC, or
LEED-accredited professionals in the community. So these are
professionals from the engineering community, from the
architectural community who have committed themselves to
greener buildings. It has been doubling at the rate of about
50--well, every 2 years, doubling every 2 years, growing at a
rate of 50 percent a year, which is good, but it is not enough
in terms of what we need to achieve in a very short period of
time.
Other statistics in terms of market growth that I think are
important to understand are that McGraw-Hill projects that by
the year 2010 there will be about a $60 billion marketplace for
green building products and services. So all of the projections
that we have heard about the potential for green job creation,
for driving tremendous innovation and entrepreneurialism in our
economy around the building sector, which is 14.7 of U.S. GDP
and generates 9 million American jobs, are coming true today.
But the single greatest obstacle to that is the perception
that, to do something good, to do something better, to do
something that is better for the environment, it is going to
cost you a pound of flesh.
And if you look at some of the research that has come out,
even over the course of the past year, about perceptions of
green building, while there is an increasing understanding
that, indeed, it does save money, and if there is a first-cost
premium associated with building green--and the research out
there right now says that that first-cost premium typically
stands at 1.5 percent of total cost--it is paid back within the
first year just based on utility savings. But the challenge is
that the vast majority of the population, even in professional
communities, overestimate that first-cost premium by more than
300 percent. So it is a mindset that needs to be transformed
through demonstration, through research, through case
histories, that could make a tremendous impact in accelerating
change.
Most of what we have talked about here today so far have
been new buildings, you know, how to really change the impact
of new structures that are being built today in America--homes,
schools, commercial buildings, governmental buildings--can
make. We would put forth that the single greatest opportunity
that we have is with our existing building stock. It is 90
percent of the opportunity, quite literally.
And a recent McKinsey study that was published put forth
that it was a negative cost, which I guess means a profitable
opportunity for CO2 emissions reductions--negative
cost is kind of a funny way to say that. We can actually make
money and generate jobs and generate economic opportunity by
investing in the buildings that we already have. That is true
in the commercial space, and that is true in the residential
space as well.
It is not as sexy as solar panels. And it takes a lot of
additional training, you know, people whose skills we don't
have today, but it is an enormous opportunity. We have done
some initial calculations, and it suggests that 1.2 million
jobs could be generated by a complete commitment.
I would like to close just by offering one additional
important focus, and it is a focus that Congresswoman Solis
brought up early on, and that is our schools. In the commercial
marketplace, our schools are the single largest market sector.
It is a $37 billion marketplace this year alone. And 20 percent
of America goes to school every day.
Congress has taken a leadership position on this with the
Green Schools Caucus, which many members of this committee have
joined as well. But it is an extraordinary opportunity not only
to dramatically reduce CO2 emissions, dramatically
reduce energy consumption, but, to Edward Norton's point,
demonstrate in very concrete terms to the next generation that
we have a real commitment to a more sustainable future.
Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Moore follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Moore, very much.
And our final witness is Tony Stall, who is the vice
president of marketing for Dryvit Systems, Incorporated. Dryvit
is a Rhode Island-based company that has been building exterior
insulation and finishing systems for over 30 years. This
Outsulation offers improved insulation and energy efficiency
benefits.
We welcome you, Mr. Stall. Whenever you are ready, please
begin.
STATEMENT OF TONY STALL
Mr. Stall. Thank you, sir.
Before I begin, I would like to thank Mr. Norton for, as he
wondered aloud if he was the youngest member at the table, you
did glance in my direction. [Laughter.]
And I know you were looking at Ms. Moore, but I am
flattered by that, as well as flattered to be in your presence
and included among you. So thank you.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Sensenbrenner, for the opportunity to address this committee on
the issue of energy efficiency in construction and strategies
to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, both of which are inherent
benefits of the exterior cladding system manufactured by my
company.
I would also like to offer special thanks to Congressman
Sullivan, who last year visited our Oklahoma office and greatly
impressed me with his sincere interest in both our company as
well as the contributions our products can make toward
improving the environment and, importantly, our national energy
security. Thank you.
Headquartered in West Warwick, Rhode Island, Dryvit also
owns manufacturing facilities in Georgia, Oklahoma and
California, as well as in Poland, China and Canada. Our parent
company, RPM, is a publicly traded American company which owns
major construction-related brands, such as DAP, Rustoleum,
Zinsser and Tremco. Seventy-five percent of Dryvit's business
is in the United States, on new construction as well as in the
renovation of older structures.
Ours is not a new or unproven technology. In 1969, we
brought the concept of a highly energy-efficient exterior
cladding system to the United States. This system, as its name,
Outsulation, suggests, is uniquely defined by the placement of
the insulating component of the system on the exterior of the
wall. That is where building science has proven it to be most
effective.
Dryvit Outsulation Systems have been used on over 400,000
structures in North America. A vast majority of the Nation's
architects and general contractors have specified and used
Dryvit claddings over the past 40 years, in both private- and
public-sector construction, residential and commercial, in all
50 States as well as around the world.
Dryvit Outsulation Systems have been a popular choice for
building owners because they are design-flexible, durable,
cost-efficient, and, most effective, more energy efficient than
any other common exterior cladding system available today.
This energy efficiency is validated by the Oak Ridge
National Laboratories, which evaluated seven common cladding
systems: brick, stucco, glass, concrete, wood, masonry, and the
Dryvit Outsulation System. Their findings are extremely
compelling: Our system tested 84 percent more energy-efficient
than next-best, 84 percent. What does that translate into for
the building owner? An average energy savings of between 20 and
30 percent. That is a significant benefit and one that can
contribute enormously to meeting our national energy policy
objectives.
Approximately 80 percent of buildings and virtually all
those built prior to 1970 are more poorly insulated than
required by current building codes. That is a significant
problem when you consider that the USGBC asserts that more than
40 percent of all energy used in the United States is used to
heat, cool and operate buildings.
Developing cost-effective energy-efficient strategies for
both new and existing buildings are of the highest national
priority. We can immediately and meaningfully reduce our
dependence on foreign, nonrenewable energy sources by raising
standards for the energy efficiency of all types of buildings.
Importantly, such policies need not be more expensive to
building owners, residential or commercial. While precise costs
are variable to geography and project conditions, Dryvit
Outsulation Systems are a cost-effective method of achieving
greater energy efficiency.
In a case study developed by a Nashville architect, 10
percent of the shell construction costs on a typical three-
story office building were saved by substituting our
Outsulation Systems for masonry. This amounted to $570,000 in
savings on a $5 million shell, a savings in concrete, steel,
cladding, and HVAC systems.
Energy savings, however, are only half the story. The other
half involves our carbon footprint. We have always known that
Outsulation Systems reduce energy use.
What we did not know and needed to find out was whether the
energy needed to create, transport, and recycle our products
was greater or less than the energy saved by using them. To
determine this, we turned to the National Institute of
Standards and Technology, a division of the U.S. Commerce
Department. NIST conducted a full 50-year lifecycle analysis,
cradle to grave, of all Outsulation system components,
including the expanded polystyrene insulation. In nearly every
category considered by NIST, the Outsulation systems were
superior to all other tested claddings. Put it in terms we can
all understand, Outsulation systems produced an overall
lifecycle carbon footprint more than seven times smaller than
brick and five sometimes smaller than stucco.
The Chairman. If you could conclude, please.
Mr. Stall. I would like to conclude, Mr. Chairman, by
thanking you and your colleagues again for your time and the
opportunity to share this vitally important information with
you. Cladding systems that place insulation on the outside of
the wall have been proven by independent U.S. Government
agencies to be significantly more energy efficient, and leave a
significantly smaller carbon footprint than those that do not.
With that in mind, I encourage you to strongly consider
both simplifying existing guidelines as well as recommending
additional legislation which will provide incentives to
building owners that choose to invest in building technologies
that have already been proven to significantly improve energy
efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. Current technology can
accomplish these goals. Building green with the right mix of
products does not have to cost more. It is responsible economic
and environmental policy to encourage the use of these
technologies to every possible extent. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Stall follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Stall, very much.
The Chair will now recognize himself for a round of
questions. And again, my mother always used to say, Eddie, you
have got to learn how to work smarter, not harder. And she
would always say that immediately before she said that she was
going to donate my brain to Harvard Medical School as a
completely unused human organ. But, essentially, her message
was, let's just be more efficient. Think smarter here. Why
waste energy, money, time when you can be smarter?
So, Mayor Newsom, you heard the debate here. Let's just
leave the private sector go and do it. You don't need any
regulations. You don't need any government intrusion. Now, if
you had not acted, Mr. Mayor, what had been the case before you
had put all of these new codes and regulations on the books?
Mr. Newsom. I appreciate the spirit of the debate, and I
appreciate the question. And the reality is they just simply
weren't doing it. They were constructing to old standards. The
designers and architects weren't working together, weren't
coordinating, weren't collaborating. Engineers were in a silo.
And folks just weren't focused on it. In fact, a lot of
developers, they are not operating or managing the buildings.
They are just happy to get a product up and gone, and then some
new independent manager comes in, and they just pass through
the energy costs to the businesses. So the fact is there was
really no incentive.
So when you get everybody in the same room and you start
creating some rationale on these things and explaining those
costs, and the fact they are going to be borne down the line,
and be borne in ways that are actually not economic stimulus,
meaning they are going to actually hurt our economic output and
the economy, then folks start saying, well, wait a second. You
are telling me 1 percent, 2 percent. I have stats. We have a
new study came out zero to 2 percent, meaning de minimis. Some
as high as 2 to 4 percent. The reality is there is not much of
a cost differential. It is the quality of imagination. That is
all that's missing here. Common sense. As you say, work
smarter, not harder. So the fact is, as we push people
together, as we force them to think differently, they are
acting differently, and they are happy to do it.
Private sector is a hundred percent on board. And we have
some of the exact same developers in every one of your towns
that say you know what, we get it. And we get it because we
have a better product that we can insure for less money,
operate for less money, get better workforce by getting better
businesses here. It is a win-win.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Mr. Norton, when people think about low-income housing,
they say, well, let's kind of spend less money on it, and it
won't be some big luxury home. But how can you make something
efficient with green technologies if you can't spend money on
it? What is the rationale? Can you explain it to the committee
so people can understand why it makes sense to make these low-
income units green?
Mr. Norton. Well, there are lots of easy ways to make low
income green. And in a strange way, low-income development,
good low-income development, has always been more efficient in
the sense that most good nonprofit community development of
housing has involved efficiency training anyway for the
economic reason that the people in the lowest income brackets
need the most relief from the high nut of home energy use and
things like that. That is increasingly true as energy costs
rise. Obviously, people in the lowest income levels are
suffering disproportionately from increasing energy costs.
But to your point, efficiency, there are lots of ways to
make a home more efficient that are not high cost premium
items, from the materials that are used to the efficient
appliances, the Energy Star appliances that are coming on line,
and frankly just training people. Someone mentioned it, many
people just aren't aware how they are using energy in their
home. They are aware what their car mileage is but not how they
are using energy in their home.
But, as Mayor Newsom was saying, we are finding, in the
affordable housing context, it is the same. There are a lot of
the same misperceptions that the various things that go into
making the footprint more efficient have a high-cost premium on
them. And we are finding also that it is in the 1 to 3 percent
range and, as I mentioned, tends to drop with the learning
curve. I think it is one of the most salient points; I heard
three different people say it, the bottom line, the impact on
the bottom line argument is based on a lot of outdated
information I think. The assumption that these techniques carry
a high-cost premium is sort of a canard at this point that
shouldn't be indulged too much longer.
The Chairman. Let me ask one final question on my round.
And that would be to Mr. Peterson, Ms. Moore, and Mr. Stall.
You heard Mayor Newsom talk about his regulations and how
it telescoped the timeframe to get the real benefits. And then
once everyone was in, they realized they were benefitting from
it. Do you think that it is good to have regulations on the
books that then everyone understands? Does that help to
accomplish these goals, or should we just leave it wide open to
every single citizen of our country and private sector
individual to move forward on their own pace?
Are regulations necessary, Mr. Peterson?
Mr. Peterson. I believe that regulations offer the ability
to set goals for people in our industry. And as we talked about
with green buildings, we are changing the way that we design
and construct buildings.
The Chairman. So the answer is yes.
Mr. Peterson. The answer is, it will accelerate the
marketplace by setting regulations.
The Chairman. Thank you.
And ultimately help, not hurt those who are affected by the
regulations.
Mr. Peterson. That is correct.
The Chairman. Ms. Moore.
Ms. Moore. The consensus process that Mayor Newsom
described I think is extraordinarily important.
The Chairman. But then the consensus has to be made the
regulation. You agree with that?
Ms. Moore. Consensus has to drive local decisions.
The Chairman. Okay. Great.
Mr. Stall, would your company be better off if we had a
national standard that everyone had to meet? How wealthy would
you become and how fast?
Mr. Stall. First of all, there are many standards that
apply to exterior cladding systems such as we make. I mean, the
code testing that is required to become compliant----
The Chairman. Is that good?
Mr. Stall. I believe that is very good, because it acts on
public safety.
The Chairman. Good. That is all I need to hear.
My time has expired. Let me turn and recognize the
gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Sullivan.
Mr. Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mayor, I was going to ask, you said a lot of good things,
what about like low income people that their houses aren't very
efficient, do you have any innovative programs to address how
they can afford to maybe update their homes?
Mr. Newsom. Yeah, we are very proud, we have a Power Savers
Program. We have other programs with our utility, PG&E, Pacific
Gas and Electric, and our California Public Utilities
Commission, which have been remarkable partners that go in
doing energy audits in low-income communities primarily as well
as small businesses. And we have all kinds of grants that are
provided by the private sector that basically make it de
minimis again. The cost is pretty negligible to retrofit. So
we, as a consequence, have been fortunate enough that we have
done so much on CFLs that we are now restricting certain types
of CFLs. So we are moving beyond the incandescent-compressed
fluorescent debate to what kinds of CFLs we are using by
eliminating T-12s and requiring now T-8s and moving toward
LEDs.
But the point I really want to underscore is Ed's point,
the issue of environmental justice and the fact that the
environmental movement in this country looks a lot like us, and
the fact that four out of five toxic waste dumps in this
country are in African-American communities. And here we are
subsidizing $4 billion a year in HUD for utilities. I mean, the
idea that Republicans, not just least of which Democrats, would
sport with these increased utility costs; that kind of subsidy
is beyond me. It puts pressure on municipal government, puts
pressure on Federal and State government to increase taxes. And
that is why I think the issue of particularly linking these
requirements that focus on your question of how we can address
low-income communities and how we can insulate, literally and
figuratively, the costs that would otherwise be borne by people
on fixed income by investing up front in quality construction I
think is self-evident. I think it is an easy question to
answer.
Mr. Sullivan. Are people taking advantage of it now?
Mr. Newsom. Unbelievably so. And it is something we market
consistently. And we are very proud of the programs. Yes.
Mr. Sullivan. And Mr. Peterson, and I guess Ms. Moore, does
your organization support any mandates, I guess national, State
or local, for the LEED rating system or certification program?
Mr. Peterson. I will speak, obviously first, for my
organization. My organization actually writes most of the
standards. They are consensus-based standards by which the LEED
rating system is modeled after. And so we write the energy
efficiency standards for buildings. We are working with the
United States Green Building Council with a new high-
performance green building standard that could be a standard
adopted by local jurisdictions for minimum requirements for
green buildings also.
Ms. Moore. From our perspective, as I mentioned earlier,
LEED was developed as a voluntary rating system for green
buildings. And in many leadership-oriented communities, like
San Francisco, they have made a decision to move from
incentives-based programs like permitting, which is low or no
cost for the city and puts a lot of money back in the
developers' pockets to create that reason to go green, to a
community consensus-based decision to adopt LEED across the
board. Now a couple of years ago when USGBC decided to partner
with ASHRAE to create Standard 189, we did so explicitly
because we thought the market was at a place at which there
needed to be that minimum standard that could set the level
floor for the level of green building achievement that any
commercial construction should be able to hit. And I believe
that that standard will be completed and available in the
marketplace sometime early next year.
Mr. Sullivan. And, Mr. Stall, did you bring a piece of
Dryvit with you?
Mr. Stall. I did not, sir. I am sorry.
Mr. Sullivan. I was just going to ask if you could, let's
say I have an old house and I want to save on my electric bill,
heating, cooling my home, it is a typical wood, I guess, house,
how would your product be applied to it? What would you do? And
just how much would it cost for I guess just a small house to
have that done?
Mr. Stall. Well, costs are of course variable according to
the job.
Mr. Sullivan. Sure.
Mr. Stall. You are looking at an average of probably
between $5 and $10 a square foot, depending upon the design you
ultimately wanted. You may be doing other things to your home,
such as changing windows, improving the sealants that may be
old and may need remodeling. You may be changing your roof. You
are probably going to involve an architect. If all you wanted
to do was add Outsulation to the exterior of the home, you
would need only contact Dryvit to start the process. And we
would have a trained applicator out there looking at what
needed to be done and coming up with a quote and----
Mr. Sullivan. Just putting that on, though, that would be
significant, just applying that to the outside of the home,
wouldn't it?
Mr. Stall. It would probably be, for a couple of thousand
square feet on the exterior of a home, it would probably take a
couple of weeks to do. Not a complicated process.
Mr. Sullivan. And how is it applied to let's say a house?
You have the wood. Does the wood have to be taken off or----
Mr. Stall. Typically, the cladding, the exterior cladding,
would be removed down to the substrate, which would likely be
plywood or OSB. And then the expanded polystyrene insulation
board would be attached directly to the plywood.
Mr. Sullivan. It is a neat product. I think it is a
wonderful innovation. I appreciate you being here.
Mr. Stall. Chairman, if I might, you asked a question
about----
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired. The
gentleman's time has expired.
But you should be proud, Mr. Stall, because on C-SPAN you
just had the first commercial infomercial in C-SPAN history. So
you should be happy right where you are right now.
Let me turn here and recognize the gentleman from Oregon,
Mr. Blumenauer.
Mr. Blumenauer. Political infomercials don't count.
I appreciate the testimony here talking about the impacts.
I think the reference several of you made to $4 billion that
the Federal Government is currently spending on utilities, I am
very interested in the thoughts that you have about how we
would redirect this, how we get the people to have government
leading by example to actually bring this to pass. Any thoughts
and observations?
Mr. Norton. Well, there is a forthcoming piece of
legislation from Representative Perlmutter, I believe----
Mr. Blumenauer. Right.
Mr. Norton [continuing]. That is entitled the Green
Resources for Energy Efficient Neighborhoods Act, which is an
attempt to just basically legislate that HUD can incorporate
environmental priorities into its various programs. For
starters, just to have HUD actually----
Mr. Blumenauer. You would rather have us change that to
``should'' or ``will.''
Mr. Norton. Yeah, I would.
Mr. Blumenauer. Is there any reason that we don't mandate
that?
Mr. Newsom. I am at a complete loss. I mean, if the idea is
to reduce the costs of government, and here you have one of the
easiest ways to reduce the cost of government, and everyone
says, my gosh, this is very challenging and difficult. I mean,
this is simple. You know, with all due respect, I am
dumbfounded and at a complete loss when we are down at the
local level where we can do it in dysfunctional cities like San
Francisco.
Mr. Blumenauer. Your words, not mine.
I appreciate, Mr. Norton, your referencing that bill. I
think we are ready to introduce it this next week. And I think
Mr. Perlmutter and Mr. Hodes have done a great job. I am
planning on being an original cosponsor of it.
This notion, though, of having a mandate, none of you would
object to mandating the Federal Government have the highest
standards?
Ms. Moore. Congressman Blumenauer, if I might add, there
are about a dozen Federal agencies that have taken very far
forward leadership positions today in green building practices.
It hasn't been adopted across all Federal buildings obviously,
but the Department of Energy, for instance, was one of the
earliest investors in the development of the LEED rating
system, and helped to advance it. And GSA is doing
extraordinary work as well that is exemplary.
Mr. Blumenauer. I guess what drives me crazy, I am as
incredulous as some of our witnesses, I have been in Congress
13 years; we have been having these conversations. We still
don't have a uniform policy. The Federal Government is the
largest consumer of energy in the world. We are not setting the
bar very high. And it frustrates me. One other area, you
mentioned issues that deal with low-income consumers. And I
appreciate you referenced Mr. Rose, who was part of a panel we
had last week here.
Mr. Norton. You are talking about Jonathan Rose, who is
also on our board. Yeah.
Mr. Blumenauer. Jonathan Rose does a great job on your
board. We have got people back home that are committed to
actually having buildings that generate more energy than they
use, that use more waste than they produce. So we know kind of
what to do with it. Is there an opportunity to go to the
private sector in terms of the private utilities that are
trying to figure out how to use, how to meet the needs that are
coming down the line, and give them a higher rate of return on
projects, insulation, swapping out hot water heaters? And
nobody in America should have an electric hot water heater
bubbling away while they are not home, for instance. Is there a
role for the regulatory process with utilities themselves to
accelerate, to jump-start this?
Mr. Peterson. Utilities play a very important part in
actually implementing these strategies. Especially in my home
State of California, as the mayor would tell you and he did
actually indicate, utility companies need to understand that
energy efficiency is the first measure in providing return to
their investors. And in many States, as I travel across the
United States, many States have not understood that business
model yet.
Mr. Blumenauer. I guess my question is, shouldn't we be
pushing to make that a part of the State regulatory framework
and maybe have some FERC incentives?
Mr. Peterson. I believe that we need to mimic some of the
lessons that have been learned in the State of California and
some of the other States with respect to the public utilities
on what energy efficiency offers for the return on investment
of those investors in those utilities.
Mr. Newsom. And California is a great example, where we are
incentivizing our public--through the California Public
Utilities Commission, is incentivizing utilities like Pacific
Gas and Electric to do the right thing. They make money by
doing the right thing. And it is an extraordinary successful
model.
Mr. Blumenauer. I see my time is wrapping up. Could I leave
a question for you to ponder and perhaps share with us at a
later date? I mentioned the location efficiency. We are having
a problem where some of the most desirable, from a transit
perspective, is the most expensive. Some of the cheapest
housing is the most expensive for transportation. And it drives
the greenhouse gas footprint. Any thoughts or reflections that
you or your organizations have about ways that we might incent
location efficiency to supplement what you are doing would be
welcome.
The Chairman. And if you could provide that in writing to
the committee from your organizations, we would very much
appreciate that.
The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from California, Ms.
Solis.
Ms. Solis. Thank you. And I apologize for having to step
out earlier. I didn't hear all the testimony. But I am sure--my
staff tells me it was very much on target.
I am concerned about the issue regarding environmental
justice communities, and the fact when we talk about the
environment and the greening, it very much looks like this
room. It doesn't reflect many of the communities that some of
the Members of Congress represent. And how do we incentivize
our partners who want to get involved in the greening of the
environment and our buildings? What kinds of things or action
can the Federal Government take to help build that ability to
have a workforce?
And Mrs. Moore, if you could answer, and also the mayor.
Ms. Moore. The focus on investing in green job skills
training is extraordinarily important. The statistic I
mentioned earlier, that 100 percent commitment to energy
efficiency in building could drive more than a million green
jobs. The skills that are needed to retrofit our buildings, the
skills that are needed to retrofit our homes for energy
efficiency aren't necessarily present in the workforce today.
You know, any of us who live in Washington D.C., if we wanted
to do a deep energy retrofit on our houses, market price,
affordable or otherwise, good luck finding someone you could
call to help you do that. There are some wonderful programs out
there that begin to provide benchmarks, like Energy Star
performance for homes that even work for existing structures.
But in making an investment in the workforce, and for those
of us who represent the nonprofit community, cultivating
stronger partnerships with trade unions and with other
organizations that represent the workforce that stands to
benefit from this is very, very high on our agenda, as well as
partnerships with Enterprise Community Partners and others who
help bring affordability to the agenda. Because I think that we
would all agree that we can't afford as a society to allow
living in a green home or working in a green office to be eco-
bling.
Mr. Newsom. Well, this is the great opportunity, is to lock
people into the green sustainable economy that have been locked
out of the old industrial age economy and really focus on the
issue of environmental justice in the context of looking at its
racial implications, and taking advantage of the opportunity to
look at your Federal workforce dollars and your workforce
training dollars in a way that advances that and focuses on
underserved communities and focuses on the creation of these
jobs that are jobs that were wisely stated earlier that can't
be outsourced. These are the jobs that need real bodies to do
real work within the community.
I will just give you a brief example in San Francisco. We
have a solar incentive program. We actually have a solar
incentive program that will provide up to $6,000, just a cash
rebate. That assumes, though, that the individual that wants to
put solar on their roof gets--rather uses resources from the
city and invests it back in through an organization that does
workforce training targeted within ZIP codes in our city that
are in underserved communities. You get only $3,000 if you
don't. Meaning we are actually putting real money up. We will
double the incentive if you go through workforce training
programs within the city and county of San Francisco in
underserved communities.
So there are all kinds of ways to create incentives that
create market decisions that are in line with I think the broad
ideology here represented in Congress.
Ms. Solis. Are any other cities doing that of, say, your
size?
Mr. Newsom. None. In fact, we very notably are proud that
we are taking the lead on this. But there are hybrids of it all
across the country, Portland of course being one of the most
progressive and extraordinary examples, but in smaller ways.
San Francisco will be the first to do that.
Another thing I also think is important, we are about to
replace our payroll tax with a carbon tax. We will be the first
city in the United States to do that. Which gets into that
whole issue of all those buildings we are not talking about.
And we are looking to address some of the issues of inequality,
looking at more grandfathering. We don't want to burden people
on fixed income with an increase in their utility users tax or
businesses in turn. And so we are looking at very progressive
grant funds as well and other incentives that would lock into
some of the points in question that you were mentioning
earlier.
Ms. Solis. Just one comment if anyone wants to comment on
the notion of trying to create some kind of a carbon tax fund,
investment fund that could then be made available to low-income
communities or areas that are blighted or could be identified
as green zones. Is there any talk about that out there in the
private sector world?
Mr. Newsom. That is literally what we have done. When I say
ZIP codes, we have created zones on the basis of ZIP Codes and
on the basis of asthma rates and all other kinds of indices
that we have determined. One of the exciting things----
Ms. Solis. Do you think the Federal Government should
consider that?
Mr. Newsom. Absolutely. Yes. I will leave it at that.
Ms. Solis. Quickly, quickly, because my time is running
out.
Mr. Norton. Certainly. We feel very strongly that
Enterprise did some of the--you know, we are exploring
extensively the way that these investments, these initial
investments in greening affordable housing will actually pay
dividends, real dividends in the sense that, as the carbon
economy becomes more defined, there might be quite a bit of
revenue available to the nonprofits, the community development
corporations, things like that available, you know, to come
back to them out of the carbon economy in terms of carbon
credits and things like that. So, literally, not just in terms
of, is there a cost premium on it, but that there actually
might be a return on investment over time because, you know,
the carbon trading is here. And we are already figuring out
ways for the low-income development community to tap that as a
source of revenue.
The Chairman. The gentlelady's time has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington State,
Mr. Inslee.
Mr. Inslee. Thank you. I was struck by Mr. Norton's request
for a challenge, you know, from Washington D.C., and his
regretting the fact that a bunch of old guys are still running
this joint. You know, and I just want to assure him we got
guys, you know, Eddie Markey pushing 90, he has got some good
ideas. Earl Blumenauer, the leader of transportation and
planning pushing, you know, 80, and he has still got good
ideas. So you are seeing some challenges here.
Mr. Norton. You need to get a microphone.
Mr. Inslee. Yeah.
I just wondered what is the best way to frame that
challenge? You know, I was struck by your language saying we
need a challenge that will challenge people to the better
angels of their nature to rise to this new enterprise. What is
best way to talk about that? And the reason I ask you is, I
have talked about it, and some people have criticized me the
way I talk about it. I talk about we got to recreate the Apollo
project. Americans still have the right stuff. This is for
America to fulfill its destiny.
And some people say, no, no, you should talk in some terms
about sacrifice, that somehow we have to sacrifice. That should
be part of the language. I just wondered, you are a master of
the popular culture, what do you think is the right way to talk
about this revolution?
Mr. Norton. I am glad you brought that up. It does strike
me, listening to the appropriate debate about the cost-benefit
analysis and what is the best instrument of these changes, is
it the free market, that part of what in my mind, without being
an alarmist, what breaks the validity of that debate down is to
some degree the environment of crisis that we are facing. I
mean, this country has done what it needed to do historically
when it faced crisis. And the question that--you know, the
question that was put to the forefront was not in those
scenarios, you know, well, should the market handle this or
not. You know, we didn't ask if the market would handle--the
market created the Depression. We didn't look to the market,
the free market to fix, you know, the country in the crisis of
the Depression. We didn't look to the free market to figure out
how to take on the challenge of--a global challenge like World
War II. This country has many times in its history acknowledged
that it needed to meet a challenge that the free market was not
the best instrument of for that.
And I think, you know, you reference Lincoln and the better
angels of our nature. I think that, in those moments, I think
that people, you know, young people--my father still talks
about being a sophomore in college and hearing Kennedy say the
phrase, ``ask not what your country can do for you but what you
can do for your country.'' Nobody is saying things like that to
us. They are just not, not in a meaningful way. I think they
are not calling--you know, people my age and younger I think
look at government these days as an argument between parties as
opposed to a conversation about the country. And I think that a
framing, a framing context, framing this as an epochal
challenge, saying this is what your grandchildren and their
grandchildren are going to remember this era for, how you stood
up and faced this problem, is inspiring. We want to be
inspired. We want to be inspired by language that--and when you
reference the Apollo project or something like that, I think
that, at core, I do think that is a part of it. I think it is
about leadership creating a narrative really for people, a
narrative that gives them something to engage in, a role that
they can play in a collective agenda.
And I think you talk about the popular culture, the
downside of it is the fragmentation of our popular culture, our
national culture. It is a function of our diversity. But what
we are missing, I think what we have been missing for a long
time is that narrative that unites us in a sense of common
purpose.
Mr. Inslee. There are a couple books that I think fulfill
that. I will give one of them after this hearing is over.
But one other quick question, as far as greening the as-
built environment, one of the great challenge is financing
this. You know, everybody can save energy if they will put a
few grand down to green their house, their as-built house. But
getting that financing is a real issue. And it seems to me that
we need some structure of an industry who will essentially
assume your energy ownership of your home that will in fact put
up the capital, do the improvements, and have the homeowner pay
what they would have paid otherwise, less some money for their
savings over time to a company that has assumed the risks for
the energy costs. That doesn't really exist right now. Can it?
Should it? What do we do to get that type of structure just in
30 seconds?
Ms. Moore. Two quick things. One, there is some wonderful
models that are working. In California, of course, for on bill
financing for home energy efficiency improvements. And in the
commercial sector, ESCOs, Energy Service Companies, that
effectively finance investment today based upon recapturing the
energy savings tomorrow are both models that are replicable.
They are just not implemented in a very large scale today.
Mr. Inslee. I will work on that.
Thank you.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr.
Cleaver.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My concern is whether or not the poorest people are going
to also be the last people to benefit by the higher level of
consciousness surrounding--around the environment. I grew up
300 yards maybe from the landfill and from the waste treatment
plant. I was in--I did my annual examination 2 months ago, and
I was scared to death that, when the doctor called me in
afterwards to tell me I had little scratches on my lungs, that
he was going to say that I did in fact have some form of
cancer, which I think has devastated my high school class.
But we have a difficult job to do. And I am interested in
your response to this, because I think we are going to need
your help. Dan Quayle, former Vice President, had a grandfather
who was a United Methodist minister. He was a master of
elocution. He was a fabulous person. Mr. Quayle got things
mixed up sometimes. And on one occasion, as he was trying to
quote the theme of the United Negro College Fund, he said, ``a
mind is a terrible thing to lose.'' And I agree with him. He
was trying to say, ``a mind is a terrible thing to waste.'' But
I think a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. And I think we
are in the middle of a crisis. And I really don't want to waste
it.
I think it is a time that we can create consciousness about
what is happening in the urban core, with people still today
living close to landfills, living close to waste treatment
plants.
And the other part of it is there are 20,000 foreclosures a
week in the United States, 20,000. And one of the things that I
have been hoping for and talking about is that if we pass--
well, actually, the Senate has a bill it is struggling with now
with FHA, but if we are going to have legislation that would
make it more possible for FHA to come in and save homes that
are in foreclosure and reduce interest rates and so forth, that
maybe we ought to have another opportunity or requirement that
we do some kind of weatherization. Because even if they save
their home, even if we are helpful in saving their homes, Mr.
Mayor, the other problem is they live in the oldest part of the
city; they are going to still end up paying more money out even
if you save your home. You are still going to be paying out
more money because you are poorer than people who are living in
an affluent area.
And I guess this is more of a plea. We need some preachers,
you know, people who are going out, talking and getting across
the reality of what we are facing in this country.
Mr. Newsom. It is faith and works. You need preachers and
people to take that passion, twin it with some action and
demonstrate it.
Look, I think what Ed is doing with Enterprise is
extraordinary. And this legislation is incredibly principled in
terms of linking Federal dollars to public housing, HOPE VI in
particular, to these green building standards. If no place
else, we should establish some framework of some minimum
standards with some local autonomy and some flexibility
perhaps.
Mr. Cleaver. We did do that on the Hope VI Program in New
Orleans and Mississippi.
Mr. Newsom. Perfect model then.
Mr. Cleaver. We are requiring that all of those one-for-one
replacements are in fact green construction.
Mr. Newsom. And then twin it with workforce training
dollars to get those residents working on rebuilding their own
homes in their home communities. And I think that is then how
you begin to reconcile some of these issues, address some of
the institutional issues and generational issues in a
meaningful way. But I appreciate your passion. And I know that
Ed and others, I think everyone on this dais shares those same
passions.
Mr. Norton. I think you are getting into something that is
definitely a strong point in our position paper that we have
submitted to you, is that apart from bold, bold ideas, you
know, paradigm-shifting ideas, there is so much in the public
sector that you could do to easily just align existing
incentives with these goals. And if you were to do nothing
else, you could have your staff go back, pour through what
already exists, what the government is already doing and bring
the standards a little bit more in line with these things. It
would be an incredibly effective way just to begin.
The Chairman. Okay. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The Chairman. And all time has expired because there are a
number of roll calls on the House floor. So we will have to end
the hearing.
Here is how I would like to end the hearing. I would like
each one of our witnesses to give us their 1-minute concluding
statement, what you want us to remember. We are going to go in
reverse order that we started with. And while you are thinking
about that, I also want to thank Ann Blackwell and Design
Within Reach for their three green chairs here. It is a start.
Okay.
We will begin here and try to do it for--do you want to
come out here so we can recognize you, Ann, for your work?
Thank you so much. We appreciate this precedent-setting set of
chairs that we are using here today.
So let's begin with you, Mr. Stall. You have 1 minute.
Mr. Stall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I didn't get to comment on public policy, so now is my
chance. When shopping for a car last week, I was offered a
$2,400 tax credit for buying a Nissan Altima hybrid. I would
save approximately $400 worth of gas a year by driving that
car. You offer currently a homeowner $300 on the old energy tax
credit for making energy conservation improvements to his home.
By using exterior insulation, he can reduce his energy bills by
20 to 30 percent per year, which in my State of Rhode Island,
my heating oil costs of $8,000 per year would be roughly
$2,000. I get a $300 tax credit to save $2,000 a year. If I buy
a car that saves $400 a year, I get a $2,400 tax credit.
Change it.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Stall.
Ms. Moore.
Ms. Moore. Given all the conversation around the room
today, particularly about issues related to social justice,
social equity, I would urge all of you and everyone in the room
to remember green schools is a critical priority. There is no
reason that today in America that every school being built
shouldn't be green. And that every school that exists shouldn't
be greened as well. Because, as Congressman Cleaver mentioned,
his high school class has been decimated by lung cancer and
other kinds of environmental issues. And this is a solution
that we can bring today. The technology exists today, and it
does not cost more for a healthier future.
The Chairman. Mr. Norton.
Mr. Norton. I think that it is terrific that you are
focusing, within the context of the overall energy and global
warming crisis, on the built environment. That is, I think,
underappreciated as one of the core sources of these problems.
I think, from Enterprise's perspective, we would like to add
emphasis to not forgetting about the affordable housing
development community within that built environment. Many, many
people don't think that the affordable housing equation can
support the same standards and practices that are going on in
the commercial building environment, and they absolutely can.
And so, as you look at it, don't forget about affordable.
And in a much broader sense, as Congressman Cleaver said,
please don't squander the opportunity of the crisis. I think,
don't be afraid to frame these challenges in the kinds of, not
panicky, but epochal term terms that they deserve. There is not
a lot of time all the best minds are telling us. And I think
for people of my generation, we want to hear it framed as a
national challenge. We want to hear it invoked as something
that needs to become a national priority.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Norton.
Mr. Peterson.
Mr. Peterson. Energy availability and climate change are a
crisis, a crisis that is starting to grow year by year as we
start to move forward. I would ask the panel to consider, as we
move forward, what type of leadership we can provide in the
United States, leadership that provides and frames what that
cause would be for Americans, leadership that also shows what
the challenges will be, leadership that includes vision, vision
that goes out at least 20 years. Where will we be as a Nation
and what type of immediate action can we start to take in order
to lead this country towards energy independence and reduction
in carbon emissions?
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Newsom. Chairman Markey, entire committee, thank you.
You give me optimism and hope. And I mean that with sincerity.
It is not a throw-away line. And all I can say is please LEED
by example. And what I mean by lead is not l-e-a-d. In this
case L-E-E-D. At least create some framework for Federal
taxpayers' dollars to do the right thing and begin to
substantively address by example these issues and address the
issue of environmental justice. There is nobility in that
cause. And that is exactly the kind of leadership that you can
do in the short run that will make a huge difference in the
long run.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mayor Newsom, very much.
We thank each of you.
And as we were at this hearing today, Secretary of Interior
Kempthorne just announced that he is listing the polar bear as
a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, which
sounds great.
But then, he also announced that he is using a loophole so
that he has to do exactly nothing to help the polar bear in its
now newly established endangered species position. Not exactly
a conversion on the road to Damascus, but consistent with this
administration's policies of preaching temperance from a
barstool. You cannot have a beer in your hand as you tell the
kids it is really bad for them. You can't have a cigar in your
mouth as you say smoking is bad for you. And you can't be out
there preaching while at the same time saying there is no role
for the government. Okay.
And so what we learned here today is that if the government
sets the standards, then the private sector will show up.
Mr. Stall will get even exponentially richer than he is
already. And that is a good thing, because the private sector
will then compete to solve the problem. And that is really what
today is all about. It is this sense of community that the
United States has to have to solve the problem.
This has been one of the most important hearings we will
have during this first 2 years of the Select Committee on
Energy Independence and Global Warming. We thank you all so
much. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:46 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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