[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
GREEN BUILDINGS OFFER MULTIPLE BENEFITS: COST SAVINGS, CLEAN
ENVIRONMENT, AND JOBS
=======================================================================
(111-51)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
July 16, 2009
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, JOHN L. MICA, Florida
Vice Chair DON YOUNG, Alaska
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
Columbia VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
JERROLD NADLER, New York FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
CORRINE BROWN, Florida JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BOB FILNER, California GARY G. MILLER, California
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi Carolina
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania SAM GRAVES, Missouri
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
RICK LARSEN, Washington JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York Virginia
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois CONNIE MACK, Florida
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
JOHN J. HALL, New York ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee PETE OLSON, Texas
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
PHIL HARE, Illinois
JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio
MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan
BETSY MARKEY, Colorado
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York
THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia
DINA TITUS, Nevada
HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico
VACANCY
(ii)
?
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency
Management
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia, Chair
BETSY MARKEY, Colorado MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina SAM GRAVES, Missouri
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri Virginia
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
Pennsylvania, Vice Chair PETE OLSON, Texas
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
(Ex Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vi
TESTIMONY
Crawley, Drury, Lead Mechanical Engineer, Office of Building
Technologies, U.S. Department of Energy........................ 11
Helsel, James L., Junior, Treasurer, National Association of
Realtors....................................................... 11
Kampschroer, Kevin, Acting Director, Office of Federal High-
Performance Green Buildings, General Services Administration... 11
Uhalde, Ray, Senior Advisor, U.S. Department of Labor............ 11
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Carnahan, Hon. Russ, of Missouri................................. 50
Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, of the District of Columbia......... 51
Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota............................ 53
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Crawley, Drury................................................... 56
Helsel, James L.................................................. 80
Kampschroer, Kevin............................................... 89
Uhalde, Ray...................................................... 106
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Crawley, Drury, Lead Mechanical Engineer, Office of Building
Technologies, U.S. Department of Energy, responses to questions
from the Subcommittee.......................................... 65
High-Performance Building Congressional Caucus Coalition,
supplemental testimony......................................... 7
Helsel, James L., Junior, Treasurer, National Association of
Realtors, responses to questions from the Subcommittee......... 88
Kampschroer, Kevin, Acting Director, Office of Federal High-
Performance Green Buildings, General Services Administration:..
Fact sheet................................................. 94
Responses to questions from the Subcommittee............... 96
Uhalde, Ray, Senior Advisor, U.S. Department of Labor:...........
Press release.............................................. 114
Responses to questions from the Subcommittee..................... 116
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HEARING ON GREEN BUILDINGS OFFER MULTIPLE BENEFITS: COST SAVINGS, CLEAN
ENVIRONMENT, AND JOBS
----------
Thursday, July 16, 2009
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public
Buildings and Emergency Management,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:00 p.m., in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Eleanor
Holmes Norton [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Ms. Norton. I want to welcome all of you to today's hearing
with particular appreciation to our distinguished witnesses for
their testimony. The Subcommittee will examine plans for green
buildings and the benefit to energy conservation and climate
change in today's world.
Since becoming Chair of this Subcommittee, I have been
plain that one of my priority goals is to maximize the GSA's
outsized real estate and property portfolio to make the Agency
the green buildings leader in the Country. My first hearing as
Chair focused on the greening of Washington, D.C. and the
national capital region because GSA is the leader in the office
building market here.
The GSA has long engaged in energy conservation efforts,
well before climate change issues became prominent, because the
Agency has understood the energy value and savings to the
taxpayer. However, with a new Administration taking
unprecedented leadership on conservation and climate change, we
are seeking ways to build on the progress we began in the 100th
Congress.
We began that progress, of course, with the pathbreaking
Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. I am pleased
that, among other things, the bill authorized high efficiency
light bulb replacements, a photovoltaic provision, and the
creation of an Office of High-Performance Green Buildings for
the first time that is required to coordinate with the
Department of Energy, which is focusing on green issues in the
private sector. I am pleased that today we will hear from both
the GSA Office of High-Performance Green Buildings as well as
from the Department of Energy.
As important as these breakthrough initiatives were, they
seem timid in light of GSA's potential impact, especially on
leasing but also on its own inventory and on the economy and
climate change in the Nation. The President was of the same
mind when he worked with our Subcommittee to place in the
Stimulus Package $5.5 billion, most of it for repair and
rehabilitation of GSA's badly deteriorated inventory. Much of
it should be used on energy conservation. In addition, we
achieved through the Stimulus at least the bulk of the funding
that was needed for the first building in the new Department of
Homeland Security headquarters compound to be located on the
old Saint Elizabeth's west campus.
The DHS headquarters provides a unique opportunity for the
Government to build an entirely green set of office buildings,
the largest construction in GSA's history. With a little
imagination, the potential for energy conservation at the new
headquarters is bountiful.
Green building activities generally cover products and
practices that conserve energy and water, promote clean indoor
air, protect natural resources, and reduce the impact of a
building on a community. Examples include insulation such as
double paned windows that reduce or conserve the heating loads
of buildings and positioning buildings in order to reduce the
need for cooling or heating the building. Green building
includes reduced flow toilets and low water plants and
landscaping. Green building improves the indoor environment
with use of non-toxic caulks and adhesive, non-formaldehyde
cabinets, and the use of filters. Green building protects
natural resources by promoting the use of products with
recycled content like carpet, tile, and wallboard while
promoting the use of rapidly renewable products like bamboo
flooring and natural linoleum. Green building protects
waterways like the Anacostia River and the Chesapeake Bay by
promoting practices that reduce the impact of structure on the
environment such as mitigating the effects of stormwater runoff
by using green roofs, cisterns, and permeable pavers; locating
buildings close to mass transit; and including bike racks and
storage units.
With GSA in the throes of redoing its existing inventory,
or at least part of it, in all 50 States, the District of
Columbia, and all the territories and with its emphasis in that
work on energy conservation, along with its work now on the new
headquarters and the Agency's own position in the leasing
market, the Subcommittee is especially interested in new
frontiers not only in green thinking but particularly in green
action steps that can be taken now.
We are interested in greening and conservation practices in
the work we will be undertaking, for example in reusing water
and energy in various types of green roofs, especially for our
existing buildings. We are interested in the difference and
value among various LEED designations in energy savings
technology and in reducing practices that harm the environment
in constructing and leasing near waterways.
We, of course, want to draw on the rapidly developing data
that allow us to compare cost to benefit and allow us to know
cost reductions that are actually resulting. Equipped with the
largest footprint in the private leasing market in the United
States and with one of the most consistent presences in the
construction market, GSA must not let these opportunities slip
away. It is has resources at a level it has not had before at
one time to do its work.
Our goal is to invigorate the Federal leadership role in
green technologies, greening strategies, and high energy
standards in all new construction, major replacements, and
repairs. Using its new resources, one of a kind, GSA must now
become the trend setter it is capable of being, particularly in
spin-off and green job creation and job opportunities during
today's recession.
We are very pleased to welcome today's witnesses and hear
their testimony. We are just as pleased to hear from our
Ranking Member, Mr. Diaz-Balart.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. I
want to thank you again for your leadership in holding this
hearing today to examine green buildings and the Green Building
Initiative. I want to thank the distinguished panelists for
being here as well.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 and also the Energy
Independence and Security Act of 2007 set standards for Federal
buildings and required them to meet certain conservation goals.
For example, these laws require energy consumption in Federal
buildings to be reduced by 30 percent in 2015 and their use of
fossil fuel generated energy to be reduced from 55 percent in
2010 to zero in 2030. They are very ambitious goals. Similar
zero net energy consumption goals for the commercial sector are
also encouraged in these laws.
The Department of Energy was also tasked to work with the
private sector to identify and develop cost-effective
technologies in order to reach those ambitious goals. The
Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings was
established within GSA and it was to coordinate with the
Department of Energy on those efforts, to coordinate green
building activities within the GSA, and to develop standards
for Federal buildings across the board.
Evidently the statutory framework enacted by Congress
envisions increased conservation not only in the public sector
but also in the private sector. Obviously, to carry out these
efforts, a number of Federal agencies need to coordinate. This
is in addition to partnerships with private sector
organizations such as the U.S. Green Building Council, which
established the LEED certification used to designate the
efficiency level of commercial buildings.
It is also very important to highlight the fact that the
requirements set by the 2007 Act actually go much further than
just promoting energy conservation, however. I have mentioned
this in other hearings, that the Act sets very strict
requirements on Federal buildings related to the reduction of
energy, water, and material resource use; improving indoor
environmental quality, including acoustic environments; and
also considering the indoor and outdoor effects of buildings.
Again, it is more than just conservation.
Now, while steps are being taken to meet conservation goals
including the use of LED lighting systems, advanced metering,
insulation, weatherization, and a number of other technologies,
the requirements under the Act extend well beyond conserving
energy. I think it is important to note that. So I really look
forward to hearing from the witnesses today about all of those
requirements needed for a green building and about identifying
where GSA is on meeting those requirements of the 2007 Act.
Again, they are very broad requirements.
In addition, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,
the so-called Stimulus Act, passed earlier this year. It
included $5.5 billion for the GSA Federal Building Fund and
designated $4.5 billion for ``measures necessary to convert GSA
facilities to high-performance green buildings.'' Now, as I
have stated many times before, I clearly support efforts to
reduce energy consumption and to examine ways in which the
Federal Government can help minimize the environmental impact
of its facilities. That is obviously a very meritorious and
worthwhile goal. I have also stated before, however, that I
believe that such efforts must be first scientifically based
and proven. Technologies must be scientifically proven and
based and done in such a way that they support American
industries and--here is the big one--create jobs.
I expressed concern in previous hearings that the focus of
GSA funding, including of the Recovery Act or the Stimulus Act,
is on greening Federal buildings instead of creating jobs. The
two objectives clearly, in my view, are not mutually exclusive.
But particularly with that stimulus funding, the priority has
to be creating jobs. They are not mutually exclusive but that
has to be the priority. We cannot lose that perspective.
I do hope, as Acting GSA Administrator Paul Prouty
indicated before this Committee in April, that these projects
will, according to him, stimulate job growth in the
construction and real estate sectors and long term improvement
in energy efficiency technologies.
We have seen it. We have read it in the news. It is common
knowledge that Recovery efforts have not worked. The bill has
not worked. We were promised that unemployment would be capped
at 8 percent if the bill passed. We are now at 9.5 percent. In
my State of Florida, it is 10.2 percent. We were promised the
creation of 3.5 million jobs when in fact we have lost 2
million jobs since the bill was enacted.
If I was concerned before, I think there is more reason now
to be concerned about making sure that we emphasize creating
jobs. Obviously something went clearly wrong, drastically
wrong, dramatically wrong with that bill, the implementation of
the bill, or the creation of the bill.
I am very pleased however, to have witnesses here today who
may be able to outline for this Committee how many jobs have
been created through these efforts. Again, I am a strong
believer that construction does help create jobs. What
industries have been supported? How we can reach both improved
energy efficiency, which as I said before is very meritorious
and needed, as well as job creation and job growth? So I look
forward to hearing from the witnesses on these and other
issues.
I once again want to thank the Chairwoman for her
leadership and for making sure that we continue to not only do
oversight but continue to lead on these issues that are greatly
important to our Nation. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Diaz-Balart.
We are pleased to have other Members present. I want to ask
if they have any brief opening statements. Mr. Walz of
Minnesota?
Mr. Walz. I will yield back my time, Madam Chairwoman, so
we can hear the witnesses.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Walz.
Ms. Fallin?
Ms. Fallin. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I am not going to
be able to stay for the whole hearing so I wanted just to make
a couple of quick comments. I am going to submit my questions
for the record and they can be answered later. But I just want
to make a couple of quick comments.
Ms. Norton. So ordered.
Ms. Fallin. Thank you so much. Ranking Member, I appreciate
your time here today, too. I appreciate all of our people who
have come to testify on the very important subject of green
buildings and how we can assist the GSA and private sector
facilities in becoming more energy efficient and cost-
effective.
I am very hopeful that through this hearing we can gain
insight into what programs we currently are seeing that are
successful and what programs we see that may need some
improvement. I am also very interested in how the GSA is
implementing the cost-effective technology acceleration program
put forth by the Energy Independence and Security Act.
I have had some particular questions from some companies in
my State of Oklahoma, very specifically from Climate Master in
my district, that wanted to gain some information about a
particular section in the Energy Independence and Security Act
that has been implemented rather slowly. I have an interest in
how we can use geothermal heat pumps, which I think are both
cost and energy efficient, to meet some of the energy goals
that are implemented in this legislation.
I think all of us in this room agree that using efficient
technology can lead to greater cost savings as well as
significant benefits to our environment. As we decide which
energy efficient ways to construct and run these buildings
using our taxpayer dollars, we should also ask ourselves if we
are saving taxpayers and businesses as much money as possible
by delivering energy in an efficient manner and using the
latest in technologies.
As we proceed with this hearing, Madam Chairwoman, I would
just like to have the GSA--and I may not be here at the time
but for the record I will submit my questions--but I just would
like to know how we are progressing in geothermal heat pumps to
meet some of the goals in the Energy Independence and Security
Act. I wonder if we can at some point in time have a list of
the buildings that the GSA is considering putting the
geothermal heat pump technology in, which ones have been
selected, and how we are working with the industry in these
particular sections.
That is really all I wanted to add today. Thank you, Madam
Chairwoman.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Ms. Fallin. Mr. Carnahan of
Missouri?
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Ranking
Member Diaz-Balart, for holding this important hearing on the
benefits of green building.
I am also co-founder with Congresswoman Judy Biggert of the
High-Performance Buildings Caucus. We have advocated not just
for green buildings but for high-performance buildings.
High-performance buildings incorporate the holistic systems
approach of energy efficiencies, water savings, use of recycled
and recyclable materials, life cycle analysis, and other
environmental attributes into designs that are accessible,
safe, secure, resilient, and oftentimes historically preserved.
These high-performance buildings are not just examples of raw
technical ingenuity, they are also inherently designed to
decrease consumption and thus the overall cost of the building
over the course of its lifetime.
I believe the Federal Government should lead by example in
the way we construct and manage our Federal building stock by
investing in high-performance buildings. We not only help bring
about much needed economies of scale for these technologies but
we also support highly skilled construction workers, builders,
architects, and maintenance engineers, just to name a few.
By designing and building high-performance buildings, we
reduce energy consumption and our carbon footprint. We save
both water and raw materials. We save demolition and
construction debris from going into landfills. Most
importantly, high-performance building construction creates
good paying green jobs that give workers the valuable skills
they need to excel in a clean energy economy.
I would like to give special thanks to the High-Performance
Building Congressional Caucus Coalition who, at my request,
produced detailed recommendations for producing high-
performance Federal buildings. These recommendations focus on
requiring true life cycle analysis for the acquisition of
Federal buildings and requiring total building commissioning
using building information modeling and integrated project
delivery. I would also like to ask unanimous consent that these
recommendations be submitted for the record.
To the witnesses before us today, I want to thank you for
taking the time to be here before this Committee. We look
forward to working with you and hearing your testimony.
Ms. Norton. Without objection, so ordered.
[The referenced information follows:]
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Ms. Norton. We are fortunate to have here the ultimate
leader on these matters, the Chairman of our full Committee,
Mr. Oberstar, whom I ask if he has any opening remarks.
Mr. Oberstar. I thank you, Madam Chair and Mr. Diaz-Balart,
our partner in these endeavors. Thank you for the considerable
endeavor you have put in and the time that you have committed
to maintaining watch over our portion of the energy bill. This
is a down payment on the continuing oversight this Committee
will conduct with the portions that we included in the energy
bill to pass the House in 2008 and with our portion of
continuing oversight of the Recovery Act.
The Federal Government has a great opportunity to take a
leadership role, as Ms. Norton's opening statement cited. I
think the questions raised by Ms. Fallin are very pertinent and
very important. I look forward to your responses. But we are
way behind the curve of other countries on the greening of our
economy and on doing what the Federal Government, the national
Government, can and should be doing.
Over 25 years ago, the province of Ontario had a program in
which the province surveyed all of its government buildings and
evaluated their energy needs and requirements, their cost, and
the savings that could be achieved. It also mounted a program
for communities, businesses, and home owners. They conducted
energy audits all throughout the province of Ontario and made
recommendations to home owners, business owners, and local
governments to improve the energy efficiency of their
facilities. They saved enormous amounts of money.
Ontario is a big, sprawling province that covers the land
territory of seven U.S. States. They have a unique encounter
with winter, as my district does. The glacier retreated 15,000
years ago but every December it stages a comeback. So it is
very important for Ontario and for all of Canada to be energy
efficient, particularly in the wintertime. Well, we have that
responsibility here.
The purpose of this hearing and subsequent ones will be to
measure the effectiveness of the GSA's management of our 350 to
360 million square feet of Federal civilian office space and
those 174,000 vehicles that GSA operates annually to assure
that we are leading, not just following but leading the way in
energy efficiency.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I look forward to the witness
testimony.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
leadership throughout your work in this Committee and
especially on this new transportation bill. We are a very green
Committee, not just a green Subcommittee.
I am very pleased now to hear from the witnesses in the
order in which they appear.
Mr. Kampschroer is the Acting Director of this new Office
of High-Performance Green Buildings in the GSA. Mr.
Kampschroer?
TESTIMONY OF KEVIN KAMPSCHROER, ACTING DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF
FEDERAL HIGH-PERFORMANCE GREEN BUILDINGS, GENERAL SERVICES
ADMINISTRATION; DRURY CRAWLEY, LEAD MECHANICAL ENGINEER, OFFICE
OF BUILDING TECHNOLOGIES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY; RAY
UHALDE, SENIOR ADVISOR, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR; AND JAMES L.
HELSEL, JUNIOR, TREASURER, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS
Mr. Kampschroer. Thank you, Madam Chair, Ranking Member
Diaz-Balart, Chairman Oberstar, and Members of the Committee.
My name is Kevin Kampschroer and, as you mentioned, I am the
Acting Director of the Office of Federal High-Performance Green
Buildings in the U.S. General Services Administration. Thank
you for inviting me today to discuss the benefits of green
buildings on cost, the environment, and jobs.
GSA, through its Public Buildings Service, is one of the
largest and most diversified public real estate organizations
in the world. We collaborate with other Federal agencies not
only as our clients but also as partners in developing,
implementing, and evaluating Federal green building programs
through such initiatives as the ENERGY STAR program.
High performing green buildings provide the best value not
only for the taxpayer but also to public through both life
cycle cost benefits and positive effects on human health and
performance. A recent study of GSA's earliest green Federal
buildings shows energy use is down by over 25 percent and
occupant satisfaction is up by the same amount as compared with
commercial office benchmark data.
More importantly, the top third of those buildings we
studied, which use an integrated design approach, deliver
significantly better results with 45 percent less energy
consumption, 53 percent lower maintenance costs, and 39 percent
less water use. Other studies of private green buildings show
that operating costs are 8 to 9 percent lower and building
values are 7.5 percent higher. They have 3.5 percent less
vacancy and yield a 6.6 total return on investment, an enviable
thing in today's economy.
Further, their initial capital cost is not significantly
higher. Studies in 2004 and confirmed again in 2007 document
that green building aspects tend to have a lesser impact on
cost than the many other myriad decisions that enter into
building a new building.
But sustainable design is not just about cost. Good
sustainable design offers value in environmental and societal
benefits. For example, a planted or green roof not only saves
costs by lowering the roof temperature and thus reducing the
amount of cooling needed, it reduces the environmental impact
by reducing power usage and the associated air pollution. The
cooler roof temperature also combats the smog-forming heat
island effect and even lowers the costs for neighboring
buildings. Finally, planted roofs absorb stormwater, reducing
water pollution caused by runoff. In cities like Washington,
D.C., which has a combined stormwater and sewer system, this
reduces water pollution both locally and downstream in the
Chesapeake Bay.
The careful use of materials can reduce energy consumption
during the manufacturing process and protect the health of
occupants. Careful construction techniques can reduce the
amount of construction waste that reaches landfills by 95
percent or more. Reuse of existing structures can reduce total
resource consumption as well as preserve our Country's
heritage. Careful siting can make buildings perform better both
from environmental and human perspectives. Proximity to
transportation, for example, reduces pollution and improves
occupants' quality of life. The key to this is holistic,
integrated consideration of all the factors that influence
buildings, including perhaps the most important one which is
the decision whether to build at all.
Much of the focus to date has been on sustainable design.
Without design, we don't achieve the goals. For example, the
Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires buildings to be designed to
be 30 percent better than the current energy code. We need,
however, to have at least as much emphasis on actual building
performance. Beginning in 2010, GSA will require new building
leases over 10,000 square feet to have an ENERGY STAR rating,
which provides a valuable ongoing performance measure.
But as has been mentioned before, energy is not the only
component of sustainability. The industry needs to expand its
performance measures in other areas as well. Buildings exist in
context. They are parts of neighborhoods, communities, and
cities. They are also tools for businesses and organizations.
One of the key policy changes of the Energy Independence and
Security Act of 2007 was to clearly articulate that a high-
performance green building must not just perform well
mechanically but must perform to improve the health and enhance
the performance of the occupants.
A key broad measure of environmental impact is greenhouse
gas emissions. Measuring the collective effects of an
organization's greenhouse gas emissions allows more informed
decisions about every aspect that affects the buildings. We
need to look at the way we buy materials for the building,
travel to and from the building, use the building, and how the
building is operating. When we look at both what the building
is doing and what is happening inside the building, we can make
even better improvements than looking at the building alone.
The Federal Government can, through its example, influence
and accelerate the adoption of sustainable building practices
and technologies across the Country. We can help do that
through publicizing the quantitative results. The increased
transparency of Recovery Act transactions and reporting on
results are key to that influence. We are also working with the
Department of Energy to establish broader benchmarking tools
that will be open to the public and to businesses.
The jobs created across the design, engineering,
manufacturing, construction, and operations industries will
bolster the green economy. These jobs will provide practical
experience in high-performance technologies, green
construction, and building operations. GSA has identified over
50 different trades and professions that will participate in
the accomplishment of GSA building projects.
Virtually all aspects of construction are changed in some
way by sustainable practices and principles. This ranges from
such basic things as demolition work, where we mentioned the
demolition recycling, the re-use and recapture of materials in
the buildings, to avoid things going to the landfill and avoid
the purchase in the first place, all the way to more high
technology and obviously green economy components such as
photovoltaic solar power systems, new lighting systems, which
we are replacing in over 100 buildings, building controls, and
advanced or smart meters. All of these require people with new
training, new skills, and new contributions to the economy.
But it is not just in construction that new green jobs are
created. Building operators in the Government and private
sector are unable to find enough well trained people to run and
maintain high-performance buildings. Buildings can easily slip
into poorer performance without proper maintenance. The
aggregate result is an unnecessary increase in energy
consumption. GSA is already in conversation with the Building
Owners and Managers Association, the International Facility
Managers Association, and others about the shortage of
sufficiently trained building operators. We believe that GSA's
Recovery Act projects can provide jobs along this emerging
career pathway that will persist to the future.
Thank you again for this unprecedented opportunity. All of
us at GSA are excited by the contribution you have allowed us
to make.
I am available to address any further questions you may
have. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Kampschroer.
Dr. Drury Crawley is a Lead Mechanical Engineer for the
Office of Building Technologies at the U.S. Department of
Energy. Dr. Crawley?
Mr. Crawley. Thank you, Chairwoman Holmes Norton, Ranking
Member Diaz-Balart, and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you
for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the
U.S. Department of Energy's Building Technologies Program and
the enormous potential for energy savings in the building
sector.
At the Department, I lead the team working through the
Commercial Building Initiative to achieve net zero energy
commercial buildings. Our team has been working closely with
Kevin Kampschroer and his team at GSA on these issues for a
number of years.
As a resident of the District of Columbia, I am
particularly pleased to be able to provide this information to
Chair Holmes Norton.
In 2008, the Nation's 114 million households and more than
74 billion square feet of commercial floor space accounted for
nearly 40 percent of U.S. primary energy consumption, 73
percent of electricity consumption, and 34 percent of direct
natural gas consumption. This gave us energy bills totaling
more than $418 billion and caused 39 percent of carbon dioxide,
18 percent of nitrogen oxide, and 55 percent of sulfur dioxide
emissions in the U.S. Additionally, construction and renovation
has accounted for 9 percent of the gross domestic product and
has employed 8 million people last year.
The Department's Building Technologies Program develops
technologies, techniques, and tools as well as minimum
performance standards for making residential and commercial
buildings more energy efficient, productive, and affordable.
The Program's goal is to enable net zero energy buildings at
low incremental costs by 2020 for residential buildings and by
2025 for commercial buildings. Achieving these Program goals
could potentially result in consumer savings of nearly $3.4
trillion by 2050.
We know that buildings impact the economy beyond the
building footprint. In electricity use, for example, flipping
on a light switch means fossil, nuclear, and renewable energy
must meet that demand. Buildings also impact land use through
supporting infrastructures such as roads, bridges, street
lighting, wires, and pipes. For example, consider water usage.
While building use does not directly impact water, the water
used for cooling generation plants and electricity production
is very large.
Thermoelectric power withdrawals accounted for 48 percent
of total water use and 39 percent of total freshwater
withdrawals for all categories in 2000. As a result of energy
savings through our Program's efforts, we estimate we can avoid
freshwater withdrawals of almost 2.5 trillion gallons per year
by 2030.
The Commercial Building Initiative was authorized in the
Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and was launched
in August of 2008. That Commercial Building Initiative, or CBI,
guides and coordinates our public and private partnerships,
looking to advance the development and market adoption of net
zero energy commercial buildings all towards a goal of net zero
energy use by 2025. We are engaged with building industry
leaders through energy alliances and research partners to move
us towards that goal. This engagement includes commercial
building energy alliances where we are working with commercial
building owners and operators to significantly reduce energy
consumption and carbon emissions. Currently we have alliances
for retailers, commercial real estate, and hospitals in place
with more under development. We have been working with
commercial building national accounts, which are largely
commercial building owners' portfolios of many similar
buildings.
We have been working with our technical experts at the
national laboratories to construct buildings that can achieve
savings of 50 percent or more in new buildings or retrofit
savings of at least 30 percent. We are also looking to select a
building industry group, a consortium to help us disseminate
the information on the new technologies and opportunities to
the commercial building community.
The Department's Building Technologies Program is using up
to $343 million in Recovery Act funds to expand and accelerate
research and development activities, including advanced
building systems research projects focusing on system
integration and control of both new and existing buildings;
residential building design and development; work expansion to
increase home owner energy savings through retrofit and new
home designs; the Commercial Building Initiative, where
projects are accelerating; and partnerships expansion for
exemplary energy performance with major companies that own,
build, manage, or operate large portfolios of buildings.
The building and appliance market transformation work will
also pursue a deeper penetration. The solid state lighting
research and development area will be rapidly advancing energy
efficient solid state lighting development and manufacturing.
In conclusion, I want to thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today. I am happy to answer any questions.
Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Dr. Crawley.
Mr. Uhalde is a Senior Advisor at the United States
Department of Labor.
Mr. Uhalde. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Norton, Ranking
Member Diaz-Balart, and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you
for the opportunity to speak with you about green construction.
President Obama and Secretary Solis have made the creation
and expansion of good green jobs a top priority, especially for
economic revitalization and sustained economic growth. Green
jobs can benefit the American worker by offering good wages,
pathways to long term career advancement, and prosperity.
At the Department of Labor, we are working to support green
jobs through investments in quality labor market information
about green jobs, investments in training and reemployment
services to support the job growth in green industries, and
encouraging registered apprenticeship in green industries such
as construction and building retrofitting.
The Recovery Act provided $500 million to prepare workers
to pursue careers in energy efficiency and renewable energy
industries. On June 24th, Secretary Solis announced five grant
competitions for green jobs training. Four of the competitions
are designed to serve workers in need of training through
various national, State, and community entities and outlets.
The fifth competition will fund State workforce agencies to
collect, analyze, and disseminate labor market information
about careers in green industries. The deadlines for each of
these competitions are staggered throughout the fall.
The Department of Labor is working in other ways to promote
green jobs. We are partnering with other Federal agencies to
support the creation of jobs and to develop pipelines of
skilled workers in the energy efficiency and renewable energy
industries.
The Department's Employment and Training Administration
plans to promote training in green industries, including green
construction, through its regular programming programs such as
YouthBuild, Women in Apprenticeship in Non-Traditional
Occupations, and the Job Corps.
The Department of Labor is also prioritizing green jobs in
our fiscal year 2010 budget request. We propose the creation of
a $50 million Green Jobs Innovation Fund to help workers access
and participate in green career pathways.
The Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, in
consultation with other Federal agencies, is working to define
green jobs to capture the full range of labor market
information in this rapidly evolving area. The Department
funded a report by the Occupational Information Network, called
ONET, to investigate the impact of the green economy on
occupational requirements in current jobs and to identify new
and emerging occupations. The study identified 17 occupations
in the green construction sector such as welders and insulation
workers where the demand for such workers would increase
because of green investments but skills and tasks would remain
largely the same. The study also identified another 19
occupations in green construction such as plumbers, roofers,
sheet metal workers that would result in significant change in
their work and work requirements for these existing
occupations.
The ETA is also recently added green building practices to
the existing Residential Construction Competency Model to
include home energy audits and waste management.
We are coordinating many of these efforts with our Federal
partners to ensure dislocated workers, for example, are
connected with jobs and that waste is minimized. For example,
the Department is partnering with the Department of Housing and
Urban Development on public housing retrofitting and with the
Department of Education on training for weatherization work.
The Department has begun initial talks with the General
Services Administration to help in the greening of our Federal
buildings by supporting apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship
programs in this effort.
The Department is looking at good, sustainable jobs. The
Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that construction and
extension operations and occupations pay a median hourly rate
of $18.24 per hour compared with $15.50 for all occupations.
The increased demand for green construction and retrofitting
work, coupled with the demand for green building materials, is
anticipated to speed the increase for manufacturing workers as
well.
In conclusion, the Department will continue to work with
the broad range of green building stakeholders to ensure that
the benefits of green jobs are widely shared.
Thank you again, Madam Chairwoman and Subcommittee. I look
forward to answering questions.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Uhalde.
Mr. Helsel is Treasurer of the National Association of
Realtors. They actually have a leading green building here in
the District of Columbia, which I hope he will reference in his
remarks. Mr. Helsel?
Mr. Helsel. Chairwoman Norton, Ranking Member Diaz-Balart,
Chairman Oberstar, and all the other Members of the
Subcommittee on Economic Development and Public Buildings of
the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, thank you for
this opportunity to speak before you and testify on the
multiple benefits of green buildings.
My name is Jim Helsel and I am the 2009 Treasurer of the
National Association of Realtors. I have been a Realtor
specializing in the commercial sector for more than 34 years.
Currently, I am a partner with RSR Realtors, a full service
real estate company in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I testify
today on behalf of 1.2 million Realtors who are involved in all
aspects of the real estate industry.
In 2002 and 2003, I served as chairman of NAR's Real
Property Operations Committee. I oversaw the development and
creation of NAR's Washington, D.C. headquarters, which also
became the first privately owned; newly constructed LEED
certified building and the first to earn the LEED silver
designation in our Nation's capital.
NAR is uniquely qualified and honored to offer testimony on
the importance of green buildings. In addition to certifying a
green building, NAR has taken a number of other important steps
to raise pubic awareness about the benefits of green buildings
in the marketplace. For example, NAR has established a green
designation program to offer advanced training and
certification for real estate professionals. We have also
advanced important green building issues including the greening
of local multiple listing services. By including data fields in
the MLS with information about real properties' green
attributes, we are responding to consumer demand for more
information about building efficiency. We have also partnered
with the Federal agencies to promote green buildings. For
example, NAR and the Department of Energy worked together on a
joint Energy Savers brochure to provide consumers with the
facts about reducing energy use and saving money.
We support the Subcommittee's efforts to lead by example
with green investment in public buildings. These investments
will help demonstrate new technologies and learning that result
in lower cost options in the long run. NAR believes voluntary
and incentive-based approaches such as tax credits will better
spur consumer demand for energy efficiency. Moreover, there is
also a need for information and education. We look forward to
working with the Subcommittee to build on these approaches in
the future.
NAR's headquarters was the first privately owned green
certified building, as I mentioned earlier, in the District of
Columbia. Located blocks from the U.S. Capitol, the building
was first occupied in October 2004 and was awarded the Silver
LEED rating by the U.S. Green Building Council. NAR believes
the best way to promote change in our society is to lead by
example. The NAR building is our effort to do just that.
As chairman of the NAR committee responsible for the
development of the building, I knew we had a unique opportunity
to demonstrate realtors' belief in green principles. For that
reason, we set a goal to become LEED certified. While the
building's LEED certification is a worthy goal in itself, it is
the steps needed for certification that are creating a positive
impact for the environment.
We began by cleaning up a Brownfields site with a long
history of commercial use. An abandoned gas station previously
occupied the site and we cleaned the site of contamination from
leaking fuel tanks. The high-performance glass wrapped building
wisely uses the daylight to significantly reduce energy uses.
Now, 50 percent of the building's energy comes from renewable
energy sources. The landscape of the building uses native and
adaptive plant species to reduce irrigation demands.
Low flow faucets, lavatory motion sensors, and waterless
urinals have all helped achieve a 30-percent reduction compared
to buildings of similar size. The building is located near
Metrorail stations and transit bus lines that have allowed us
to achieve a high rate of transit use: 70 percent of our
building occupants ride public transportation to work. In
addition, showers have been installed to encourage biking to
work.
All these accomplishments are highlighting the building as
part of an education campaign of its sustainable features.
Just as NAR built a green structure to lead by example, so
now NAR's policies support a voluntary, incentive-based
approach to energy efficiency. We believe this will help build
momentum in the private sector to adopt green trends. This
provides a win-win by allowing for vigorous economic growth
while improving the environment.
The role of the Federal Government to encourage green
development should also lead by example. Through the
development of green Federal buildings, the public sector can
create best green practices that will transfer to the private
sector.
During this time when the current real estate market is
fragile and just beginning to show signs of recovery,
additional onerous cost in the form of mandates could hamper
our economic recovery and hurt the spread of green development.
Realtors believe the Federal Government can do more to promote
sustainable development by keeping the market free of mandates.
We encourage the Federal Government to offer incentives such as
tax credits.
Realtors have shown that building green can be both
proactive and a profitable process. Our experience has shown
that current programs have been allowed to thrive, shift, and
mold to meet specific conservation needs in geographic areas.
NAR supports a national green building program that is flexible
and market driven that encourages continued growth and
sustainable construction that protects options for consumers in
all markets; and that preserves, protects, and promotes the
health of our environment.
We stand ready to work with the Congress on the best way to
implement green principles that balance needs in the
marketplace with those of the environment. We look forward to
working closely with your Subcommittee as legislation is
considered.
Again, thank you for this opportunity.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Helsel.
What I am going to do is I am going to ask just one or two
questions of each witness and then go to the next person. There
may be votes. I may even have to go because the District
appropriation is there. If necessary, we will come back. We
will see how far we can get. There will be some time, though, I
think before any votes come forward.
Mr. Kampschroer, as you can imagine, this office has been
particularly interested in your new Office of High-Performance
Green Buildings, so much so that we saw to it that it was in
the first groundbreaking energy bill. You couldn't be coming
online at a more auspicious time. Never in the history of the
General Services Administration has it had so much money at one
time to do good.
It has got 22 buildings here in the District alone. They
are all across the United States, of course. I will begin here.
They are in my Ranking Member's State. They are in every State
of the union. They are in all four territories. I know they
have been carefully chosen.
Now, we have heard your discussion of what your office
does. Now we need to know, given the fact that you have this
opportunity with so many resources, precisely what you are
doing. What kinds of technologies are being required in the new
construction, for example? What kinds of strategies are being
used? We need to know if they are being used in all 22
buildings here and all across the United States. We understand
it depends upon what is happening in the building.
We are trying to get an idea of some examples of the
involvement--if there is involvement--of your office with the
unprecedented repair, renovation, and construction now
underway. Would you give us some of those examples? Let us know
how your office is involved, if it is directly involved, in the
actual use of the stimulus funds the Congress has appropriated
for the work of this Subcommittee.
Mr. Kampschroer. Thank you. We are indeed directly and
pretty intimately involved in the allocation of resources, the
selection of projects, and the consideration of what goes into
those projects.
I think one of the more interesting things that we have
done since the passage of the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act is to create a series of standardized
specifications for various technologies to be included in
buildings. We have been working with the Department of Energy
and several of the national laboratories under the Department
of Energy to develop those.
Most particularly, I will highlight what we are doing with
roofs. Every roof that was in serious need of replacement in
the next two years we examined for four different possible
technologies: integrated photovoltaic membranes, crystalline
panels of photovoltaic energy production, cool roof technology
generally, and planted roofs. All of them have standardized
specifications that we have worked out with the Department of
Energy as well as with our legal council. These are being used
in every contract across the Country, both here in the District
as well as all across the Country.
In lighting, we have worked with the Department of Energy,
the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the National
Electrical Manufacturers Association to develop a series of
seven different technical specifications for different lighting
systems. What we are trying to get across is the idea that
lighting technology in the last 10 years has changed
dramatically. The typical approach that you hear about from
sort of Joe's Garage Manufacturer and Lightbulb Replacement
Company is that all you do is you go in and you replace the
lamp. You take out a 32 watt lamp and put in a 28 watt lamp and
you save something.
But what has happened is that in many of our office
buildings you have lighting conditions that were designed on
standards that were developed before the personal computer was
even invented. We need to completely rethink the way lighting
is done in the buildings.
We need to split the systems, have just a little bit of
light in the ceilings, and recognize that actually what has
happened in our buildings is that we have too much light.
Office buildings in this Country have 400 times more electric
light today than they did in 1900. Our eyes haven't gotten 400
times worse. We need to really harvest the daylight that is
there.
I remember vividly the Chairwoman coming into one hearing,
dramatically opening the windows behind the chair, and saying
we could really use a little bit more of the light. Of course,
we were then seeing the CNN camera crew at the other end wince
as their cameras no longer could focus on the Members. But that
is very, very possible in today's environment.
What we are finding is that even today, compared to the
retrofits we did in the 1990s, we can reduce consumption of
energy by half from those even good standards back then. We can
also improve the working environment for the people there,
reducing the amount of glare on the screens, recognizing that
most of us spend most of the day working on devices that
produce their own light so we don't need to add nearly so much.
Then we need to be working carefully with the Chief
Information Officers of those organizations to make sure that
they are using the appropriate technologies to reduce the
energy consumption in the management of the devices on people's
desks. So those are a few of the examples of the combination of
technology.
The other thing I did want to mention is that we are
systematically instituting a long term measurement process. We
are working, for example, with every photovoltaic installation
that we have to populate the Department's of Energy database
that measures long term production and reliability of
photovoltaics. That way, we know what technology works and what
technology works a little bit better as we go forward. We will
be using several different technologies so this is particularly
important for them.
At the same time, we start every project by going back and
looking with a highly qualified engineering team, again, one of
our standard technical specifications, at every piece of
equipment in the building that could and should be
commissioned. Again, we are following the rules that are laid
out in the Energy Independence and Security Act for re-and
retro-commissioning, using that as the basis for going forward
and not only designing changes to the building's systems but
also measuring as we go forward. We want to make sure that
those savings are achieved.
Ms. Norton. It looks like you are involved, Mr.
Kampschroer. That is what we want to be sure of. These are
important to note.
Mr. Crawley, you have heard some of what Mr. Kampschroer is
doing. I was interested in your testimony discussion of
research, especially as I heard Mr. Kampschroer's testimony.
Here we have two offices--the GSA certainly needed its own
office given its own inventory and its own needs--but I am
interested in the relationship of these offices to research.
Let me indicate what my bias is. I am and always have been
a strong supporter of the work we are doing here. But I have my
doubts about the impact we are going to have even if we got
everyone in the Country to do what they are supposed to do. The
instinct of the national population is to believe in inevitable
progress and that you are not supposed to make sacrifices.
Therefore, in my own thinking about greening and climate
change, I am far more interested in technology.
I drive a hybrid car. I don't know how D.C. is so long in
getting a plug-in car. Even that, it seems like we should be
beyond batteries by this time. We have only begun to fight, as
they say. But at least that is an example of where people could
switch immediately based simply on a technological change. That
has been within our grasp for a very long time and we just have
only begun to use it, certainly to any significant degree, in
this Country.
So I think we have got to press people as hard as we can to
do all the things we are doing. I was raised to turn off lights
and the rest of it. But to have a kind of cosmic impact that we
better begin to have if we are serious about climate change, we
have got to have a view of how bad it is, how it shot up so
quickly, and then what is really available to us.
Now, Mr. Kampschroer is looking at advanced lighting and
heating and the rest. On page two, you list areas of research
of the very same kind with ventilation and air conditioning.
With the kind of limitation on funds that we have and the
deficit that we have, I would be particularly interested in how
much actual sharing, particularly in the research area, can be
done. The last thing we need to do is have one office
duplicating the other, especially when it comes to frontier
research of the kind it is going to take to have any
difference, if at all, in the short term on climate change. I
would like that difference to come while there is still an
Earth, a planet here.
So could I ask you about how you know whether or not Mr.
Kampschroer, who works, for example, in the commercial office
area that hugely overlaps with yours, whether you know even
what he is doing? How do you envision working with him so that
you and Mr. Kampschroer aren't spending Federal dollars doing
the same work on ventilation or heating, particularly given the
advanced science, advanced techniques, and frankly the advanced
and costly personnel it takes to make any kind of
breakthroughs? How do you avoid duplication?
Mr. Crawley. I think we are already avoiding duplication.
Mr. Kampschroer and my office have been coordinating for
several years, even before the Energy Independence and Security
Act asked us specifically to coordinate and to work together.
Particularly with the Recovery Act funding, we have been
supporting his work. Specifically, the expertise of our labs
and our other consultants provide technical support.
He mentioned lighting. We were able to produce
specifications for the office sector, taking the knowledge we
already had from our research, giving it to them directly, and
understanding their needs.
GSA has also been very supportive in the work that we have
been doing. They are, as we have already heard, a leader in
this area. They have helped us in establishing our energy
alliances. In the commercial sector, Kevin and his team have
been very supportive in helping us establish best practices
since they know what works well and what information we can get
out into the private sector. Also, those alliances are a way
for us to learn what research needs to be done. Are there
technologies in the market today that can meet those needs? If
not, then our research will support GSA and our other Federal
agency partners that we are working with today.
Ms. Norton. I very much appreciate that. The funds will be
scarce. Did you want to say something, Mr. Kampschroer, on
that?
Mr. Kampschroer. If possible. One of the other things I did
want to mention is that when the national laboratories and the
Department of Energy are looking for locations in which to do
research in actual operating buildings, GSA typically will work
with them to supply those buildings. Thus, we make the use of
actual operating buildings.
We just actually completed with Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory a study on different kinds of filter materials for
cooling systems in a building that we operate in Cottage Way.
So they do the research and we provide the place in which to do
the research.
Ms. Norton. So you are the laboratory?
Mr. Kampschroer. Yes. The guinea pigs, you might say.
Ms. Norton. I like that. Indeed, it seems to me the GSA
ought to have to do virtually no research. You have at your
disposal all of the Energy labs and the advanced science,
perhaps more so than any civilian agency. For that matter, I
would hope that the Defense Department, which has more money
rolling around than anybody, would be useful to us all.
I want to ask Mr. Uhalde about these green jobs because I
am real mixed up about green jobs. I want to make sure this
doesn't become a racket.
I remember when we had our first big Stimulus hearing
asking the unions and the manufacturers about--particularly,
was I interested in the workforce--how interchangeable the
workforce was and the rest. I certainly recognize that at a
certain level there would be a certain kind of training. I must
say that they assured us that the workforce was
interchangeable. I am sure that you have journeymen and the
rest who are already doing this work.
It occurs to me that much of the work does not or should
not, in fact, take a lot of training. When we use the term
``green jobs,'' it sounds very mysterious because it covers a
multitude of either sins or skills that are not spelled out. So
I am interested in the levels of jobs that we are calling green
jobs. They would go all the way up the scale, all the way up to
the electrician and the engineer.
Would you start at the lowest level and make me understand
the skill level that is necessary and whether it is so terribly
much to do? What kind of training would it take? Help me
understand what I mean--which I do not know--by lowest level.
Then, to the best of your ability, go on from there to where
you think you hit a threshold where considerable training is
necessary. Then what are you talking about? Is it on the job
training, school training, and the rest? Thank you.
Mr. Uhalde. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. The study that I
cited in my testimony, the Occupational Information Network,
did identify many occupations that we currently know and are
very familiar with. They, in some sense, have what has been
referred to as a green patina. There are aspects of the
occupation and knowledge that are changing because of energy
efficiency and renewable energy emphases.
For example, you could have workers who worked in the auto
industry in stamping plants who now can be working in the wind
turbine manufacturing sector. They are continuing to work in a
stamping plant are but stamping out metals for wind turbines.
Similarly, being able to assemble wind turbines on the ground,
maybe wind turbine assemblers are assemblers that might have
been working in another field. It is the nature of the product
that makes it a green job as opposed to the actual skills.
But we are also learning, like in construction, that there
are just certain competencies that need to be paid attention to
that weren't before. We need much more attention to waste
management and disposal as well as the identification and
treatment of renewable waste products.
Ms. Norton. But isn't that a management as opposed to a
worker issue?
Mr. Uhalde. But then the worker has to be given the
knowledge and has to be able to be sensitive to the fact that
they have to pay attention to these.
Ms. Norton. But you don't have to be a rocket scientist.
Mr. Uhalde. We are not talking many, many years or even
months in many cases. For example, we are interested in career
advancement, so maybe weatherization tasks, that is the energy
auditing that is required and then the remediation and
installation of weatherization products, and weatherizing
residential neighborhoods might be considered at the entry
level of a career latter in this. We have recently spoken with
community action programs who are doing a lot of the
weatherization work. The training and certification can be a
matter of three or four weeks for energy auditors in that work
area.
Ms. Norton. Is there anybody that certifies any of these
people who are all going to now say they can do green job
training?
Mr. Uhalde. Well, what they certify in this case is
weatherization, both energy auditors and into the area of
remediation and installation of weatherization.
Ms. Norton. It is important what you said about how you are
usually referring to the job as opposed to some set of skills.
I recognize that when we get into some of the areas we have
been discussing, obviously, you are talking about some
specialties, people already have the skills but need to get a
little more knowledge and information. I just want to make sure
that everyone understands that a lot of this work, and I think
the majority of this work, is not very advanced.
Mr. Uhalde. That is correct. Some of it is not and it is as
I said, putting a green patina on existing occupations. But
others like environmental technicians and stuff are very much
growing occupations. There are two year community college
programs and certificates. They are very important as
augmentations to engineers and water quality technicians and so
forth.
Ms. Norton. We want to encourage people to pursue those
growth occupations. We, of course, are particularly interested
in the Stimulus funding for jobs that can be done now. That is
the reason for my question. You don't have to go to school to
get many of these jobs or you go to school for a short time and
it is worth that training.
Mr. Helsel, when your building was going up, I thought it
was sent from heaven. I can tell you as a native Washingtonian,
that strip of land, if anything, was seen as a throw-away
strip. There was a little park on one end but it was so oddly
shaped that no one would have thought, frankly, that what would
ever replace it would be a building. Its shape did not invite a
building. But you have changed the entire environment by
placing a building there.
I would be particularly interested in why you chose this
space. Since the building has been up, I remember I went to the
opening of the building, almost ten years ago, is it?
Mr. Helsel. It was 2004, ma'am.
Ms. Norton. You may be able to talk to us about savings you
have already seen and when they began to kick in. I understand,
for example, there has been some water reduction but there may
be others. If you could, speak about this first green building
in the Nation's capital.
Mr. Helsel. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. First, I would say
that when we set out to find a new home for the National
Association of Realtors, we did so with a number of criteria.
One was that we wanted to be fairly close to the Capitol. We
wanted the legislature to see that we were serious about doing
what we wanted to do, which was to be in the Nation's capital.
That occurred when people were still not sure how much they
wanted to build after 9/11, frankly. We started this process
right after 9/11. When the building went into service in 2004,
it was significantly after that. It was after a lot of work.
We also wanted to go to an area where we thought we could
help the neighborhood. As you have said better than I could,
that neighborhood needed some work done in it. I think it was
with a little bit of help from people like you in the District,
from the District of Columbia itself, and from the Realtors
that we saw the advantage of taking a site that maybe some
people did not want to touch by virtue of some things like
Brownfields.
We thought we could not only help the environment and the
neighborhood geographically, but we could do something that the
Realtors could be proud of as well. We could say look what we
have done for our Country as it relates to environmental issues
and things like that. So there were a number of things that
went into that.
I will be honest with you: When we started the process, we
didn't start the process thinking we would go with a LEED
certified building. It was shortly after we got on site,
purchased the land, and began to do work that we decided that
was the right thing to do. We made the decision at that point.
To your question that relates to savings, I think I said in
my testimony that we save somewhere in the neighborhood of
about 30 to 31 percent in water savings a year. We gather water
off the roof and off the flat surfaces of the property, which
we keep in underground tanks. We use that for rewatering of
plants and things like that both on the rooftop terraces as
well as on the surface of the land around the building. We also
do things like waterless urinals. We have flow restrictors on a
lot of things. We have done a lot of things like that from a
water standpoint that have been very beneficial. It is about 30
or 31 percent.
We also did some things with electric that were
interesting. There was a lot of discussion a little bit earlier
about lighting with buildings. We actually have taken our
building and, as some of you know, the building is enveloped in
glass. We have taken not just the natural ambient light from
the outside but we have also decided that we can't just have
ambient light. We need to be able to adjust lighting based on
what people need in their workstation areas. That building is
set up more in workstations than it is in private offices,
though there are both. So we use light sensors in the building.
You will find that the lights in those buildings rise or
fall in terms of brightness based on the ambient light that
comes in from the outside, which has been a great savings from
an electrical standpoint. You don't see the difference; you
don't notice the difference when you are sitting in your
cubicle. But it occurs on a daily basis, whether it is cloudy,
whether it is light, whether you are on the east or west side
of the building. We have done some things like that that have
been helpful as well.
I would say, if you said to me what is the overall savings
we gain on an annual basis, probably somewhere between 12 and
15 percent over the operational costs of what it would have
been had we not gone LEED certified. It varies a little bit
depending upon the year, depending upon what happens with
weather inside and outside. No matter how well we have
enveloped the interior of the building, the exterior weather
certainly affects what happens. So from a practical standpoint,
I am comfortable saying 12 to 15 percent on an annualized
basis. That figures in as well the 30 percent on water so it is
kind of a blended rate, if you will.
Ms. Norton. So these systems are paying for themselves?
Mr. Helsel. They are. Our estimates were when we built the
buildings that most of the systems would repay themselves in
either three to five years or five to seven years. That is not
totally true of everything but it is a good average for what we
did.
Ms. Norton. That payback is so demonstrative; it is so
compelling that I don't see how you could build an office
building without it today. Of course, you didn't know in 2004
what we know today.
Mr. Kampschroer, I heard you testify as well as Mr.
Crawley, but let me ask Mr. Kampschroer about what we are
doing. Then I am going to go straight to Mr. Diaz-Balart.
You talked about over-lighting. Now, you have got this
magic opportunity with the DHS building. I hadn't even heard of
this in an office building where there are kind of self-
adjustments based on the lighting.
We just got in the Capitol a system where, if you step into
a hallway, they can feel you or see you and then the lighting
comes up a little bit. That is where we are. I don't think
anywhere in the Capitol is the light adjusted based on the kind
of outside lights you have and the rest of it.
So I am going to ask you, when you are doing lighting, have
you any knowledge of this system installed in 2004 when you are
doing the 22 buildings here and the buildings across the United
States with the over-lighting? Are you using these light
sensors, for example, that were just described by Mr. Helsel,
who was one of the first LEED buildings?
Mr. Kampschroer. Yes, we are. In fact, it is part of our
standard specifications that we use variable ballasts. For
every light fixture or light luminaire in the ceiling that is
within 15 feet of the exterior window, they have an adjustable
ballast that performs exactly was just described.
Ms. Norton. On their own, self-adjusting?
Mr. Kampschroer. Self-adjusting. Furthermore, we even have
one installation that we are using as part of our standard
specifications when we can where the lighting is tied to
individual occupancy. You just described walking into a room
and the room lights go on. What we are talking about here is
the individual desk being tied into the control system so that
if I am not sitting at my desk, the lights automatically go off
no matter what is going on, person by person. Then furthermore,
we allow the individual person to override what the controls
say. If they happen to be doing work where they need more
light, they can turn it on. Or, as frequently happens in my
office, I override the controls and they go off.
Ms. Norton. Excellent. I just wanted to make sure we were
at least current with 2004 and Mr. Helsel.
Mr. Diaz-Balart?
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I think this
has been fascinating. It is just amazing cutting edge
technology, which obviously is very exciting.
By the way, Congresswoman Fallin did, I think, submit some
questions to the Chairwoman. If you all could have a chance to
look at those and make sure that she gets a response, we would
greatly appreciate that. Thank you. We just have to take care
of that house cleaning part first.
I am going to go back to, frankly, a very basic issue. I
keep harping on this but it is pretty evident why I keep
harping on it. I don't have to tell you all where we are in the
economy.
This Congress and the Administration charged another $780
billion on our children and our grandchildren because it is
money that we don't have. With interest rates, it is over $1
trillion to create jobs. That was the explicit reason for that
bill. That was, remember, on top of $1 trillion for TARP. That
was on top of half a trillion dollars for the Omnibus. That was
on top of the billions and billions to keep the auto industry
from going into bankruptcy, which didn't work because they went
into bankruptcy anyway.
We know that despite all of that, unemployment is now at
9.5 percent, not at the 8 percent we were told it would be
capped at. Millions of Americans are working part time jobs or
less hours because there are no full time jobs available. So I
am not apologetic about going back to this one issue, which is
jobs.
Now, I have two questions on that. I heard both in written
testimony and in the testimony today that the Bureau of Labor
Statistics is now working to define green jobs. So here is a
question that kind of jumps out at you: How are Labor, GSA, and
other agencies even measuring the number of jobs created by
this funding if we don't even have a measurement of what those
are and how to define them? How was Labor able to determine the
type of training needed for these green jobs when we don't even
have a definition of what those green jobs are yet?
Mr. Uhalde. Mr. Diaz-Balart, when I said the Department's
of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics is working to define green
jobs, they have requested in their 2010 appropriation funds to
be able to systematically identify and count over time on a
quarterly basis green jobs, both the industries and then
occupations, and the number of people working in those
occupations. This will be over time, across the Country. We
want to be able to identify by geography where these are and
what the concentrations and distribution of those jobs are.
But in terms of doing, for example, the job training that
we have put out, we have a working definition of green jobs
that we are using and that people are using. We had a
discussion just a moment ago and you heard about certain craft
and trade occupations that are developing green aspects to
them, but also that there are applications of current jobs in
new industries. For example, if we are hooking up smart grid
systems around the Country in west Texas, the Dakotas, and
elsewhere, the line installations and stuff are contributing to
more inexpensive and efficient energy production by hooking to
wind turbines and the like. But much of the work that is being
done is by line installers and repairers that have existed
before.
So what we will do over time is to decide whether and how
to define these as green jobs or not and how many to count. But
in practice, what the Recovery Act has done is incentivize more
of that activity. For now, we need more workers to train in
those areas.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Let me ask you, do we have any idea of how
many jobs, just jobs, green and otherwise, have been created
with the funds from the Recovery Act in your areas and how many
are projected? This is something that the Chairwoman has always
been very emphatic about, making sure that we can track those.
Mr. Uhalde. Well, we don't have the estimates of green
jobs. But the Administration, early on for the Recovery Act,
estimated that 3.5 million would be created or retained by the
last quarter of 2010.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. I understand that. They also said that
unemployment would be capped at 8 percent. We are way beyond
that. We have lost 2 million jobs since the bill passed and
unemployment is now way above the 8 percent.
But that is not my question. My question is do we know how
many jobs in your areas with the Stimulus money have actually
been created?
Mr. Uhalde. We are going to count and report. We just got
our first report from our Department of Labor expenditures. The
first report, I think, for almost all of Government is July
15th. So all the States have reported as of yesterday their
first expenditures on that. We will start doing that on a
monthly basis starting this month.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank
you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. The Ranking Member is
right. He mentioned a favorite of mine, which is jobs. It is
also a favorite of the Administration. It is the whole point of
the Stimulus funds. The second priority, of course, was energy
conservation.
Going to jobs, let me tell you, Mr. Kampschroer, I had a
discussion with a high official a couple of weeks ago at GSA
after I had labored to get specific funds, albeit only $3
million, placed into the stimulus package for pre-apprentice
and apprenticeship programs. There was no action, even though
some of this work isn't begun, that he was able to tell me had
been taken. I began to rattle off common sense things to do
without knowing what to do.
Meanwhile, at the last big hearing that the Chairman had
here on Stimulus jobs, I asked the Department of
Transportation, which has a comparable labor force, what it was
doing. I asked them if necessary to work with GSA. The Federal
Highway Administration now has more money--$20 million, that is
not a lot either--but it has got a two-pronged approach going.
It has solicited proposals. Its Office of Civil Rights has
jurisdiction.
Let us be clear why. This industry, the construction
industry, was once and is no longer, I am pleased to say, the
most segregated industry in the United States. It was not
because they set out to be that way, but because they had a
father/son/nephew way of doing jobs. People who weren't nephews
or sons, mainly women and people of color, simply were not in
the industry at all. The courts took action. The Federal
Government, along with the industry and Labor, set up a very
good labor management Government enterprise. It was abolished
in 1980 after it got a generation of no appreciable systematic
addition of minorities and women to this workforce.
Meanwhile, the workforce is aging out. Before the collapse
of the economy, there were actual shortages of journeymen, for
example, in most of the trades. So I was heartbroken to hear
that the GSA had been so slow. They know my priority on this
issue. They also know I worked very hard to get them the
biggest project in the Stimulus package.
So I have got to ask you, where is GSA on its decision
about how to incorporate the funds that were specifically
appropriated to the GSA for pre-apprentice and apprenticeship
training of people who have not had access to such training in
the Country?
Mr. Kampschroer. Thank you. First of all, our memorandum of
understanding between ourselves and the Department of Labor has
been completely executed at the beginning of this month.
Ms. Norton. You're what? I am sorry.
Mr. Kampschroer. We have a memorandum of understanding
between ourselves and the Department of Labor which identifies
who is doing what within our programs to identify both
apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs, to make sure
people are properly certified to do them, and how best to apply
the funds across the Country. We are currently identifying
projects and locations on the spending plan that we submitted
earlier.
Where registered apprenticeship programs already exist, we
expect a complete report on that by the end of next week. For
every project that we identify on the list, the construction
contractors will be required to maintain the apprenticeship
program throughout the duration of the construction of those
buildings. We have already developed contract language and
provisions to encertain those contracts modeled on those that
have already been successful in the national capital region of
GSA.
We are meeting with the Department of Transportation on the
31st of July to find ways of optimizing our resources and
contract vehicles to more effectively implement apprenticeship
programs in GSA and to see if we can't have some kind of cross-
fertilization between the two agencies.
We have hired a consultant to help identify State and
community based organizations that currently offer pre-
apprenticeship programs including on the job training,
classroom training, and work/life training that assist us in
developing new pre-apprenticeship programs in areas that are
deemed most needy across the Country and are located where we
have Recovery Act funded projects. We expect the initial report
on how we are going to design that by, again, the end of next
week.
That is sort of the nutshell version of where we are today.
We would be happy to provide further detail if you desire.
Ms. Norton. The Chair expresses her profound disappointment
in what I have just heard. If you had a lot of money, I could
understand the bureaucratic approach you have taken of first
let us consult with the Department of Labor. The Department of
Labor knows a lot and it has a lot of money to do what it is
going to do. You got three million lousy dollars.
The notion of treating that $3 million as if there needs to
be some Government-wide consultation as opposed to forming a
taskforce of some kind to consider, because you know exactly
why these funds were put in and you know the embarrassment to
the Country when people go out on these jobs and see that there
are not people trained to do the jobs, it makes sense for you
to have consulted with Labor, but I don't see how that could
have kept the GSA from looking at its own, given the small
amount of money and the need to spend it with the summer coming
up. That is the prime building season and you have now wasted
half of it while you consult.
Let me tell you, I don't know why the Department of
Transportation has been able to get up and running so much more
quickly, but it may be because the Civil Rights people were in
charge. They understood why this money is in there in the first
place. There are millions of Americans who aren't trained to do
this work, even at the lowest levels. Pre-apprenticeship is
necessary in order to get them even a foothold in the
apprenticeship.
The national capital region program is irrelevant. It is a
certified apprentice program. I am grateful for it. But it is a
program merely to make sure that if you are an apprentice on a
Federal job here, you are a certified apprentice. It keeps
jackleg apprentice programs from occurring in the national
capital region. It has absolutely nothing to do with the $3
million, which are training funds. Even looking at that program
shows me that the Agency has not paid attention to the purpose
of the funds.
It is very, very disappointing to me. It was not easy to
get these funds. I am not going to go on longer except to say
that I already spoke with a high level official. With so few
funds, all this consultation is make-work. If he identified the
Agency's goals and then went to the Department of Labor and
said these are the kinds of places we are thinking about going
and we are thinking about going there because there is a
critical mass--why would you want to do it in the first place
if you are only doing a tiny bit of Federal work--but there is
a critical mass of work to be done here and we don't want to
duplicate what Mr. Uhalde has much more money to do, just as
you are coordinating with Mr. Crawley, at that point, when you
understood what you were doing and the options available to
you, it make all the sense in the world to make sure you
weren't duplicating what you were doing.
This has to be done by, yes, consultants. But this is a
pittance of money.
Let me tell you how disappointed I am and what I am going
to do about it: I would like the appropriate officials to meet
personally with me, Committee staff, and my staff in my office
no later than next week. Next week, I won't set the date. I
have no idea what is the best date even for me. But whatever
date that is, that is the best date for GSA to come in. There
has got to be something on the ground.
We are talking about on the job training. Most of the money
should go into pre-apprenticeship programs. That program has to
do a lot with making sure that you clear the decks of people
who don't even understand that an apprentice program, to be
successful in it, you have got to be able to get up and be to
work at 7:00 in the morning. You have to work in the heat of
the day and you have got to be able to go to work when it is
very cold. A lot of it has to do with training an entirely new
workforce of people who have not been exposed.
To the extent that we are sitting around trying to see how
many boxes to check off before we begin to spend what amounts
to two cents, that is all we got, and we are now into the
middle of July and we are not even started in one place even
though this area right here is rich with opportunities? Yes,
they have got to be spread all over. Staff told me there was
even some consideration of taking this $3 million and daubing
in here, there, and around the Country. If you only have $3
million, you have got to look at where it can be most
beneficially spent given the Congressional intent and the
amount of money. So to act like you can do 50 States, the
District of Columbia, and the four territories with $3 million
is so pitiful that I am angry, frankly.
You ought to know I would be angry. I have called you
personally. So I want the meeting in my office. I want your
preliminary thinking. Talk with the Department of
Transportation. Find out how they were able to do it so
quickly. Don't come in as a blank check about which Federal
office you are now talking about. Come in with some ideas of
your own. We will work with you. There has got to be a program
of some kind.
Let me be clear: What is today? What is the date of today?
Mr. Kampschroer. The 16th of July.
Ms. Norton. Guess what? August the 1st, there has got to be
some apprenticeship work being done with that $3 million. So
get yourself geared up.
This was February. You knew there was going to be a pre-
apprenticeship program before February, before the bill was
even passed.
The Ranking Member has talked about where the jobs are.
Well, that is a fair question but it takes time for the jobs to
roll out. There is a lot of pressure to get the jobs out. But
it doesn't take a lot of time to put a training program in
place that does not require anything but the preparation for
people for on the job training.
I am profoundly disappointed and will not stand it another
moment, not another moment. Be in my office next week and on
the ground somewhere by August the 1st.
Mr. Carnahan?
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I am pleased to
be here and to see the work that this Committee is doing with
regard to green buildings. I wanted to, again, thank the
members of the different Departments and the representative
from the realtors for being here.
I wanted to start off with a question for Mr. Kampschroer.
Unfortunately, some high-performance building systems can cease
working as they have been designed over time, largely because
they don't receive proper building management operations or
maintenance. You have touched on this point during your
testimony. We have talked about this before.
Do you have any estimate on what percentage of facility
managers within GSA are properly certified?
Mr. Kampschroer. I don't have a good percentage because
there isn't a standardized, nationwide certification program
that really deals with this technology. One of the things that
GSA has done in this area is that we have worked with Penn
State University to develop a program for GSA employees. In the
last couple of years we have trained nearly 700 people in
various aspects of high performing buildings.
But we do recognize that this is an industry-wide
phenomenon. I mentioned in my statement the Building Owners and
Managers Association and the International Facility Managers
Association. There are also private firms like the Hines
Development Company who have internal training programs. They
have indicated their willingness to work with us on some kind
of more significant certification program.
But I think that this is an area that the industry as a
whole is lacking in. It is one of the reasons that, for
example, in the Energy Independence and Security Act there is a
requirement to recommission buildings every four years. We
found that in four years, as you mentioned, buildings get out
of tune as it were. One of the things that we are doing to
ensure that doesn't happen with this unprecedented opportunity
is to make sure that as we put in the smart meters we have
constant monitoring systems going on. So, at the very minimum,
we can find out with early warning systems when things are
going out of tune and apply some greater expertise in there.
But I think it is an area where we could incorporate
community colleges. We could really look at a longer term
program that would yield not just green jobs but also a career
path that doesn't exist today. There are all kinds of levels of
work in buildings, from changing filters, which requires, as
the Chairwoman says, very little training, to actually retuning
and making sure that the control systems in buildings are
tuned. That, in many cases, requires significant programming
and engineering experience to understand what you are doing and
to make sure that it continues to work.
Mr. Carnahan. So, if I understand this correctly, the 700
you mentioned are facility managers that have had at least some
level of training that the GSA has sponsored internally.
Mr. Kampschroer. Yes.
Mr. Carnahan. How many facility managers are there
nationwide? I am trying to get an idea of how many people have
been through this kind of training.
Mr. Kampschroer. That is the significant majority of the
people who are GSA employees. But we should recognize that
about 96 percent of this work is actually done through
contract.
We are at the moment changing our contract specifications
to increase the requirements for training and certification of
training. But that hasn't gone into place yet. That is a thing
that we need to be doing more of. We have recognized that and
we are tying, again, to work with the institutions to figure
out what the best requirements are that are both available and
achievable but also effective.
Mr. Carnahan. Tell me what kind of time line the Agency is
on to get those kind of mechanisms in place.
Mr. Kampschroer. If I could, I would get back to you with
that when I have the accurate information. I don't have that
with me.
Mr. Carnahan. If you could provide that to me and the
Committee, that would be very useful. I appreciate your
acknowledgment of this in terms of the operational expertise
and training for buildings as we are improving their
performance.
The next question I had was for Mr. Crawley. You mentioned
the High-Performance Green Building Consortium under the
Commercial Buildings Initiative at DOE as a DOE/private sector
effort to advance technologies. But I understand that DOE has
yet to recognize the participating groups. Can you give us an
update on the status of those partnership programs?
Mr. Crawley. Yes. There was a solicitation from the
Department out six or eight weeks ago. That closed on Tuesday
of this week. We will be looking to make a selection in the
next few weeks.
Mr. Carnahan. What would be the process beyond that point?
Mr. Crawley. At that point, the consortium that is selected
through the competitive solicitation is actually contractually
working with the Department. We will be working with them to
set a program of work over the next few months and the contract
is put in place. Recognized corsortia will also be put on our
website.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you. I will look forward to seeing that
up and going.
Back to Mr. Kampschroer, I would like you to share with us
what has been your experience with using energy saving
performance contracts and how we can increase their use within
the Government sector. We have heard some success stories about
those being used here and overseas in terms of Government
entities being able to basically at no up front cost be able to
have these companies come in and retrofit buildings. Part of
the cost savings from the energy use is passed on to the
Government entity and part goes to the companies that are doing
the work. I want to see what kind of opportunities there are to
use this mechanism to begin to retrofit our buildings.
Mr. Kampschroer. Thank you. Energy savings performance
contracts and their twin with utilities, the utility energy
savings contracts, have been used in GSA for more than a
decade. We currently have 52 active energy savings performance
contracts and utility energy savings contracts across the
Country with a total investment amount of over $200 million and
an annual BTU savings of one million million BTUs through the
use of energy savings performance contracts.
The Department of Energy has recently established a new
contract with a greater number of firms, 16 firms, under the
Super ESPC contract. Those are for large jobs. GSA, though its
schedules program, is establishing some of the energy
performance features into the schedules that we already have
for energy contracts that will deal with the smaller jobs that
other agencies may have.
We are currently negotiating energy savings performance
contracts that are in conjunction with Recovery Act spending
where we have decided where the best use of the Federal dollars
is. Then firms are being solicited to do additional work with
private financing so that we get the best total energy
conservation in the building.
The key to all of this is solid negotiation with good
technical backup. We use technical backup from the Department
of Energy as well as some that is privately contracted directly
with GSA to ensure that we have got the best engineering
reports on hand. For Recovery Act projects, as I mentioned
before, we are doing an independent commissioning of the
building first, which gives us even better baseline information
before we even go into negotiations with the energy services
companies.
We have also dealt directly with the Association of Energy
Service Companies to try and encourage them to propose not just
the short and easy low hanging fruit, or as Secretary Chu says
the fruit on the ground, but rather to really give us the
proposals that stretch the limits of capabilities that are
available in the technology but that also will give us the most
durable benefits over time.
Mr. Carnahan. Is this being done, in terms of vetting these
firms and getting them involved, is that being done centrally
here or is that being done throughout the various GSA regions
in the Country?
Mr. Kampschroer. The individual contracts are negotiated in
the various regions around the Country. However, the contracts
are reviewed in the national office before award for two
overriding reasons. First of all, we want to make sure that the
engineering is adequate and we have gotten the best possible
deal for the Government. Number two, we want to make sure that
the asset value is actually being increased by the performance
of these contracts and that we have the appropriate measurement
criteria as we go forward.
I have one other point. The pre-qualification of all of the
firms was done nationally by the Department of Energy in the
ESPC program. So every firm we deal with is already pre-
qualified and has a negotiated contract. So we are in essence
issuing task orders under a master contract.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you.
The next question is really to all the participants. It is
related to what I believe is a fundamental problem with how we
manage the construction and maintenance of our Federal building
stock. As you all know, we have a Congressionally approved
budget for acquisition and a totally separate budget for yearly
operations. Often the responsibilities of these budgets are in
two separate organizational elements with different leadership
and reporting responsibilities.
This means that any investment in innovation that increases
our acquisition cost, while substantially reducing the long
term cost of operations, is not considered. This is a
fundamental dichotomy. I believe it creates a misalignment
between setting goals for high-performance buildings and
achieving these goals.
There is no short answer for this but I would like to ask
each of you to comment on this dichotomy and whether you have
any thoughts on how this can be better coordinated. We will
start with Mr. Kampschroer. We will go from you and then to
your left.
Mr. Kampschroer. This really is a no short answer question.
I wish I knew the answer to it because then I would be
advocating it right here and now. I suspect it is going to
require a combination of the Executive Branch and the
Legislative Branch working together to figure out a different
way to handle the dichotomy that you point out.
One of the things that has happened that I think improves
the situation, and it actually came from this Committee into
the Energy Independence and Security Act, was the lengthening
of the time over which we can make life cycle cost analyses
from 25 to 40 years. That enables us to make better sets of
decisions, especially for those pieces of technology that have
a longer life span as well as for those components of buildings
like the envelope, windows, roof, and so on that last longer
but increase capital. As Ms. Fallin mentioned, geothermal
ground source heat pump systems, which have a significantly
higher capital cost, certainly pay off in lowered operating
costs and lower energy consumption over time.
I am not exactly sure, in a nutshell, what the right answer
is. But it is some way of linking the two budget activities.
I think another key is changing the measurement systems for
the people who are in charge of projects. If today we measure
only the budget and the schedule of the capital, you are
inherently not going to measure the long term effects of the
building. We have to have that feedback loop of the long term
effects to make sure that in fact decisions that are made
during the course of the project are those that will yield the
greatest overall benefit and not the greatest short term or
initial cost benefit.
One of the things that we have proposed to bridge that gap
in GSA's budget this year was a line item in the budget that
would allow us to apply it without regard to the original
budget cost to, say, a project that started without a
geothermal system, for example. We could say that actually this
makes a lot of sense and it should have been designed in
originally. It wasn't in the original budget so let us add it
in. This gave us sort of a flexible funding mechanism that
could be applied to projects, regardless of the initial budget,
to improve the long term benefits. That is in this year's
appropriation request.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you.
Mr. Crawley. Thank you. The dichotomy you are talking about
for the Federal sector is also there as well for the private
sector. We see a lot of organizations that have that same
problem where the operation budget is separate from the capital
budget. So it is very difficult for them to make decisions.
The ones that are most successful have combined those. I am
thinking of a national grocery store chain where the people
responsible for construction of new stores, and they were
building many new stores every year, also were responsible for
the operation maintenance of those stores. So they knew the
decisions they made in construction would make an impact. They
were also responsible for reporting to the CFO and their
chairman on operating costs. With very low margins in the
grocery sector, an energy impact was taken very seriously
because it affected their bottom line.
Like Mr. Kampschroer, I don't think there is a simple
answer. But the ones that are looking at it in a comprehensive
bottom line aspect when they make a capital dollar investment
today including what are the long term operating aspects of
that and can they improve, are really the ones that are being
more effective.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you. Mr. Helsel.
Mr. Helsel. I agree there is a dichotomy and no, I am not
sure I agree with Mr. Kampschroer approach on this issue. I
think there is a dichotomy. I absolutely agree with him there.
I will tell you what we do in the real estate business. We
are really talking about managing real property right now, as I
understand it. We look at both our operating budget and we look
at our capital budget. We decide what we can do with the
capital budget based on what the operating budget is allowing
us to do based on how much money we make, frankly, on a
building. Private industry would say that works well if you
watchdog your buildings well. If you don't watchdog your
buildings well, it doesn't work so well.
So the dichotomy that Mr. Kampschroer speaks of is
absolutely correct. Unfortunately, it falls between several
different agencies within the Federal Government, which makes
it very difficult to try and work those things out.
But there are other groups who could also, I think, enter
into there who can help Mr. Kampschroer work on that. It is a
huge project. It is not going to happen overnight. I agree with
him in terms of the difficulty and the long term look at how
things will occur.
But I can tell you that, and I will be rather self-serving
when I say this, there is a group called the Institute of Real
Estate Management which provides the preeminent designation for
property management in the United States. It is called the CPM
designation. I didn't hear Mr. Kampschroer suggest that they
were helping GSA do that job or that they have contacted them.
It is not an unfair comment or meant to disagree with Mr.
Kampschroer. I just think there are other groups in the private
industry who do this on a day to day basis.
Typically, I find private industry manages real property
better than some of the governmental agencies with which I have
done work. I just shake my head because I don't understand how
they do it. I am not sure that is the case with GSA. My
experience has not been with GSA, in fairness to Mr.
Kampschroer. It has been with State agencies.
Mr. Carnahan. I would be interested in getting more
information about that program and also seeing if there are
ways the Government can learn from what you are doing in the
private sector.
Mr. Helsel. We will make sure you get the information.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Carnahan.
Mr. Crawley, you may recall that my interest is in making
GSA not even a leader, but the leader. The Government, it seems
to me, can't go about telling everybody else what to do if it
owns a comparable set of buildings and isn't doing it itself.
So I would like to ask you whether in your coordination with
GSA you find that the goal of the Government through the GSA,
speaking only to the GSA, is to exceed private sector standards
in the statute and in practice? Or are we simply trying to meet
them? Or are we even trying to meet them?
Mr. Crawley. In our work with GSA, we very much have seen
that they are looking to get the best results that they can
within the constraints provided.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Crawley, that is what everyone is trying to
do. I am asking about goals. I am not asking are they achieving
them. They are limited in part by what we give them in funds
and the rest. But we have got a statute here that says, Mr.
Helsel, there are certain kinds of things you ought to be doing
now. You have got the GSA. All you have to do is look at both
of them. I am asking are the goals of the GSA to exceed Mr.
Helsel's standards or not?
Mr. Crawley. Yes, they are.
Ms. Norton. It seems to me that Mr. Helsel, who was a
leader and whose realtors have been leaders, ought to be trying
to catch up with GSA. That is what the Subcommittee is going to
be looking to see. The standard you are setting has to look at
the office building sector all over the Country, for example.
Is it not true that office building sector is more
responsible for our carbon footprint than any other part?
Mr. Crawley. It is the largest part of the commercial
building sector.
Ms. Norton. No, I am saying commercial buildings as opposed
to residential buildings and cars. Which creates the biggest
carbon footprint?
Mr. Crawley. Currently, the residential sector and the
commercial sector are about equal, both around 20 percent.
Ms. Norton. We are the largest in the commercial building
sector?
Mr. Crawley. Yes.
Ms. Norton. Now, that means we have an enormous capacity
because we are now tipping into more leasing than owning. We
have enormous capacity, beyond what Mr. Kampschroer is trying
to do with his own inventory, to change the Country. The gold
standard for leases is to get yourself Federal lease.
I ought to first ask Mr. Kampschroer, to what extent does
leasing require the standards that we have set for ourselves in
our own inventory as an item in the RFP, which the GSA uses in
deciding who rehabilitates, who constructs, et cetera?
Mr. Kampschroer. I mentioned earlier that beginning in 2010
we will require every building that we move into greater than
10,000 square feet to have an ENERGY STAR rating within the
most recent year of operation.
Ms. Norton. Say that again. By when?
Mr. Kampschroer. By 2010.
Ms. Norton. That we construct?
Mr. Kampschroer. That we lease.
Ms. Norton. That we lease?
Mr. Kampschroer. Yes, every building over 10,000 square
feet that we lease. There are a few exceptions that are
specific in the law. But we have been out publicizing that
relatively new requirement.
Ms. Norton. And that means that those buildings will have
to have what?
Mr. Kampschroer. An ENERGY STAR rating, which means that
they would have to submit information to the Department of
Energy and be certified by a professional engineer. It means
that they would be in the top 25 percent of efficiency for
buildings that are available in the private sector.
That is a significant change because in this Country,
unlike many developed countries, the standard is not to
submeter electrical costs to the tenant. Here it is just sort
of lumped into the overall rent rate. In most of Europe,
Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Japan, the tenants actually
pay directly for the electrical cost and there is a different
kind of relationship that you develop with the tenant as the
result of that. What the ENERGY STAR rating does is it starts
to put us on a similar kind of footing where both we and the
tenant are motivated to make changes.
I should also note, too, that if you compare GSA's current
inventory, even before the effects of the Recovery Act, our
inventory operates at about 26 percent less energy consumption
than the commercial comparables. This is in large part due to
the long standing emphasis on energy conservation, certainly
since the late 1970s, that has been in law. That has affected
our decisions and also the investment that the Government has
made in energy conservation activities over time.
Ms. Norton. Indeed. As I noted in my opening statement, GSA
is new to energy conservation. But with Mr. Helsel at the same
table with Dr. Crawley, who deals not only with our public
sector but of course with our private sector, you see here an
owner that moved ahead of the breakthrough energy bill. I know
that your office deals perhaps primarily with the private
sector in not only homes but office buildings, Mr. Helsel, but
have you had any relationship with the Department of Energy
programs? Do you know about those programs?
Mr. Helsel. I have not personally had any. I know the
National Association of Realtors has put together some
pamphlets and some training pieces of material that are good
for the consumer. In fact, I mentioned them. Somewhere inside
of my testimony, I mentioned where we have actually worked with
the Department of Energy to help educate the public on how they
could reduce energy costs and things like that. So that is the
extent of what I can tell you now in relation to what we have
done with the Department of Energy.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Crawley, would you indicate what kind of
relationship your office would have with a typical building
owner in the local jurisdictions across the United States?
Mr. Crawley. With a typical building owner, we don't have a
lot of direct activity. We have been working with a number of
organizations through our energy alliances. The Commercial Real
Estate Energy Alliance, with which GSA and Mr. Kampschroer's
office are involved, involves over 40 organizations. The
leading owners of commercial real estate in the Country came
together to help us determine what research needed to be done
but also what changes in practices and procurement we could
help them with through specifications and other work.
Ms. Norton. In this city, I have often had the impression,
of course, this city may well not be typical and in fact in
many ways it is not, that the private sector has long ago
understood what was to be gained by energy conservation. The
Federal Government may have had a lot to do with that, as a
matter of fact, because of our leasing here.
But to what extent is there a consciousness that they are
sitting on top of some real money in the private sector if they
are not investing in energy efficient systems? Take aside the
recession where people can't invest in anything. Is there a
consciousness so that you see a rapid movement on the part of
building owners into saving themselves some money, let us say,
since the terrible rise in energy costs here?
Mr. Crawley. We are seeing that. The leaders in the market
are making changes in their buildings. They are beginning to
see energy as a real cost center that they can take advantage
of to improve their bottom line. Even in the recession they are
seeing it as an opportunity to save money and cut costs.
Ms. Norton. But of course, Mr. Helsel, they don't have
quite the funds and they can't go to the banks today to make
the initial investment. So what do they do?
Mr. Helsel. Well, what you just said is true. But I will
tell you, much to Dr. Crawley's point, that now more than ever
the private industry is looking at how we can save dollars
everywhere. They will look at the cost savings and the benefits
of doing something now when times are tough, when we are losing
tenants, when we can't refinance, and do things like that. We
are taking extra time and effort to find where we can save
dollars. Energy is the first place we look.
Ms. Norton. You sometimes have to do it low-tech first
because this does take some initial investment, doesn't it?
Mr. Helsel. You are correct. But I would say that the
impetus on everyone, including the private sector, is as strong
or stronger now than it ever was. If there is money to be spent
somewhere on a building right now, one of the first places we
look is how we can save energy.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Uhalde, I think that people need to
understand more about these green jobs. You, in your testimony
on page five point, to May 2008 wages and you say that
construction and extraction occupations pay a median hourly
rate of $18.24 as opposed to $15.57 for all occupations. Is
this journeyman pay you are talking about? You say research
shows that green construction jobs may be well paying. But
then, as you go on, you do not indicate that these rates are
for green construction jobs. I have to assume that they are
construction industry jobs?
Mr. Uhalde. That is correct.
Ms. Norton. If a person were to be trained to be an
apprentice or a journeyman today, would that normally mean that
those who were doing the training would incorporate some green
training based on the way in which the Country is moving?
Mr. Uhalde. That is correct. The building and trades and
all the apprenticeship programs now are currently building in
the latest aspects of green construction into those
apprenticeships.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Kampschroer, I apologize that you happen to
be the face of GSA here today and so you had to take the
scolding for the Agency. Normally, I like to not scold the
messenger. But the responsible figure is Mr. Guerin, whom I
personally called, not you. So I do want to indicate for the
record that Mr. Kampschroer has no role. Although I would like
to you come to this meeting next week because you have had to
think beyond the obvious. It was Mr. Guerin that I personally
called, which I why, frankly, I am angry. I personally called
him. I don't personally call the Agency. Once in a blue moon, I
call the staff and say would you make sure people know.
The matter of these jobs is a personal embarrassment to me.
We happen to be the capital city. Well, they couldn't avoid it
if they were going to do rehabilitation, if they were going to
build in the Federal sector. They can't avoid my jurisdiction
so of course a lot of it is happening here.
I don't have a lot of issues with what is being done here.
I have every indication that the Department of Homeland
Security in fact recognizes it has a special responsibility
building in the lowest income section of the city. I am pleased
with what DHS is doing there.
But I am not pleased that there may be another mid-sized
city like this city, like Baltimore, for example, which isn't
getting attention now even though that is another Federal
sector. And that is why I am very concerned. This was like six
months ago that this bill was passed. I will not take another
second of it. Sorry.
Actually, GSA was here last week. I do not know why in the
world in my haste I did not mention this, and I apologize that
I did not, but I called before last week to indicate my serious
concern about having to go all the way to the Speaker to say
whatever you do, do not put any money out here and then have
people in these cities--I know you are going to get a lot of
money, but I have got to be able to say to women and minorities
and other people who have not been trained that this is the
beginning of what we are trying to do, to give you a foothold
in the construction industry.
We have got millions of unemployed journeymen. So
understand where my concern is. Those are people already
prepared to take the jobs. So they have got to be hired
instantly, and I want them to be hired. They have been out of
work longer than any key people here.
So here we came up with this notion that the reason we do
not see many of you is we have had a generation of people not
trained. But we do have apprenticeship programs, do we not? We
have them at the Department of Labor and, yes, even in the
funds we have and funds in the highways part of the bill.
We have been thoughtful enough to understand that we had an
obligation, and I am going to see that it is met beginning
October 1st. If they have been sitting on their hands and have
not thought about it, we are going to help them to think. I
cannot express enough anger than when the Chair of the
Subcommittee calls that it does not make a bit of difference to
get people moving, even when she indicates one approach to kind
of start you off.
So with apologies to you, Mr. Kampschroer, I note that
another building that I worked to get ever since I came to
Congress, the Department of Transportation building, is the
only truly spanking new building here in the District of
Columbia and it did not receive a LEED rating. I could not
believe it. It is a massive building on M Street. So I have to
ask you, why it is not a LEED? How can I know that everything
being built in the United States with Federal funds by GSA will
be LEED, including the Department of Homeland Security
Headquarters?
Mr. Kampschroer. The simple answer is that we signed a
contract for the Department of Transportation building before
we established the requirement to have leased new constructed
buildings----
Ms. Norton. When was the contract signed?
Mr. Kampschroer. In 2002.
Ms. Norton. Before you did what? I am sorry.
Mr. Kampschroer. Before we established the requirement that
buildings that we lease that were constructed specifically for
the Federal Government had to meet the LEED silver standard
after that.
Ms. Norton. So you could not make it actually LEED,
realizing that the standard for leasing--it is a pity, people
are like how could you possibly be leasing this? This has
nothing to do with you. It has to do with Congress and the way
it appropriates money and deals with real estate. How could you
be leasing a headquarters? You just built it. It will be there
for eternity. But that is what you had to deal with and,
therefore, you had to deal with the requirements.
Okay, it could be a LEED building. But you have long
experience in energy conservation. It seems to me it ought to
be pretty close to LEED. Is it or is it not, the DOT building?
Mr. Kampschroer. My understanding from the people who
constructed the building is that it is close to a LEED
certification. What has not happened is the documentation
necessary to know exactly what that is.
Ms. Norton. I am sorry. You said what?
Mr. Kampschroer. My understanding is that it is close to a
LEED certification but we do not have the documentation to know
for sure. What we are doing with leasing, and especially with
agencies here, we have, for example, the EPA buildings in
Crystal City. The two buildings there are both LEED gold. We
have, in fact, more LEED certifications of various levels in
buildings that we lease than in buildings that we own to date.
Ms. Norton. Say that again.
Mr. Kampschroer. We have more buildings that are leased
that are LEED certified at various levels than buildings that
we own.
Ms. Norton. Because they are newer?
Mr. Kampschroer. In many respects. They can operate a
little bit more quickly than Federal construction can. But they
both have the same requirements right now.
Mr. Norton. Mr. Kampschroer, some building manager,
somebody has got to know how much of what conserves energy is
in that building. I am sure there are some things in this
building. I would like within 30 days to know what the energy
conservation features of the DOT building are. I would like to
know whether or not you could go back and see if the building
could be LEED certified. Based on your prior experience, you
already understood, GSA, what should go in the building. I need
to know how energy efficient this brand new building is, which
is a headquarters building.
It cannot move out of the District. We are going to be in
there for perpetuity just like the Justice Department, and I
need to know how close it comes to being a LEED building and
what its basic features for energy conservation are.
Mr. Kampschroer. I would be happy to provide that.
Ms. Norton. What are the staffing goals? We have heard
about your office and you seem deeply knowledgeable. If we are
serious about your office, you will need staff. What are the
planned staffing levels?
Mr. Kampschroer. The current planned staffing levels, we
are in fact classifying and recruiting even as we speak, are to
have approximately seven or eight people in addition to myself
focused on the Government-wide responsibilities and four or
five people focused on the GSA responsibilities relating to
high-performance green buildings.
Mr. Norton. I do not know how to judge that. How many
people are in the office now?
Mr. Kampschroer. Three.
Ms. Norton. Had you worked in this field before?
Mr. Kampschroer. Yes. Actually, prior to this job I was
working with the energy programs of GSA, as well as the
environment programs and the research program within GSA, which
is modest applied research focused on those things that are not
within the ambit of the Department of Energy or anyone else
doing major research. Before that, I was the research director
of GSA and worked on development of some basic research into
how buildings affect human performance. For that I worked in
the Office of Portfolio Management, sort of the basic asset
management functions of the agency.
Ms. Norton. I appreciate that the Agency, particularly
because this has all occurred before it has a new head
confirmed, has put into the office someone like yourself who
has deep background in this area.
Would we even consider building a courthouse today that was
not LEED certified?
Mr. Kampschroer. We would not. It has been a requirement
since 2000 that, beginning with buildings in 2003, they be LEED
certified. Today the requirement is LEED silver.
Ms. Norton. Mentioning gold and silver, what did you say?
Mr. Kampschroer. The requirement today is that the minimum
requirement is LEED silver and every contract has an expressed
goal of achieving LEED gold.
Ms. Norton. What is the difference in savings to the
Government ultimately, roughly speaking? Maybe this is to Mr.
Crawley as well.
Mr. Kampschroer. Roughly speaking, based on that study that
I mentioned earlier, we can expect savings for gold and
platinum ratings to be roughly double those for certified,
which is the lowest level.
Ms. Norton. Are they so much more costly that you would not
almost automatically do them? Let us take the Department of
Homeland Security, since we are going to be there. We are going
to be at the Department of Transportation forever even though
it is a leased building so imagine how long we are going to be
at the old Saint Elizabeth site. Why would we not want to go
platinum knowing that that will be outstripped in our lifetime
and that the savings are already calculable even though it
means somewhat greater investment now? Indeed, how much greater
investment is there, relatively speaking? So much so that it
becomes a real factor or not, a factor considering the savings
and the payback?
Mr. Kampschroer. A platinum building, you can certainly
measure the additional cost. At the silver level, you can, with
good integrated design, achieve the benchmark goal within a
typical building budget. It is a question of applying those
resources effectively and using the kind of integration of
systems, technologies, sitings, and building use.
Ms. Norton. When you say effectively, what do you mean? Do
you mean that it is such a high level of expertise or skill
level that it would be difficult?
Mr. Kampschroer. Integrated design is something that the
profession got away from in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and
even 1990s. So what you had delivered in this Country, by and
large, were buildings that were designed in stovepipes.
Mechanical engineers would typically say it does not matter,
you can design the building any way you want and we will build
you a mechanical plant that will cool the building. Of course,
we ended up creating sick building syndrome by that kind of
thinking.
So what is really needed here is a reapplication of things.
Let us say Michelangelo knew that everything relates to
everything else and the decisions you make on the envelope, on
the way the building faces, and on how you move in and out of
the building have a long term effect on how healthy the
building is but also on how well it performs. And that form of
integrated design is something that is coming back into play.
But we do not see it all the time. You can look around the
Country and not see it in private sector buildings that are
being built. So it is still the minority way buildings are
being put up.
Ms. Norton. Well, when you have an opportunity to build
three buildings for the Department of Homeland Security, is
there any case to be made for anything other than platinum?
Mr. Kampschroer. It is a balancing act of cost and
performance at the platinum level.
Ms. Norton. How much? I need to know. Maybe Mr. Crawley can
answer as well. Since we know the payback can be very
substantial and the building is going to be there forever, what
percentage more? Is it 15 percent more to construct a platinum
building? Is it 50 percent more? Give me just some rough
ballpark figure between you and Mr. Crawley that you can agree
on.
Mr. Kampschroer. Platinum buildings are pretty few and far
between right now, so I am not sure that we have----
Ms. Norton. What is a platinum? To be platinum, what would
you have to have?
Mr. Kampschroer. You would have to have everything working
together in the building to the maximum extent.
Ms. Norton. Everything has to be----
Mr. Kampschroer. One building I am familiar with that is
platinum, actually we have one building in our inventory which
is an existing building that was retrofitted under the existing
building program. It is actually the first platinum building in
the Country. It is an FBI field office in Chicago. The other
one is the Genzyme office building in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
I am going to give you the Genzyme one because I have
physically been through it and it comes to mind. The Genzyme
building, compared to a typical specification office building
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was about almost 30 percent
premium.
It was worth it to the company because they are a niche
developer of pharmaceuticals and their niche is they develop
the pharmaceuticals for illnesses that have a relatively small
population. So you are talking about a drug with a lot of
benefit but maybe to only 10,000 people. So that is their
niche.
They have a very strong human focus and so they did a lot
of things. There is a very large atrium that goes all the way
down through the middle of the building that cascades light
through the building, So you have 100 percent of the building
that is day-lit. In a standard commercial office building that
would be considered floor space that was an opportunity that
was lost. So you have a significant cost premium associated
with that. They have operable windows throughout the building
that are tied into the control system and a double facade since
this is in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Again, double the cost for
the facade but with significantly greater performance. It does
pay out in the total life cycle cost of the building but this
is really pushing all of the technology pretty much to the
extreme there. That is the kind of example.
As we are going forward on Saint Elizabeth's, we are
pushing the developers and the designers of that site to give
us the maximum amount within the budget. We are looking to
improve considerably from even the original concept. There are
a lot of creative things already being done with the site with
water management on the site, with low impact development
around it, with the way that the roof is treated and the way
the water is handled on the roof, and a variety of other
things. I am sure we would be happy to give you more details on
where we are today. But we are also pushing them to deliver the
maximum that the budget will allow.
Ms. Norton. I very much appreciate it. Is gold next down
from platinum?
Mr. Kampschroer. Yes.
Ms. Norton. Is this going to be a gold building?
Mr. Kampschroer. I would hope so. That is the goal for the
building. The developer of the EPA site has gone on record
saying he can deliver a gold building for the market comparable
rates. So I think that is a very reasonable goal for the
building.
Ms. Norton. It is very gratifying to hear. I want to ask my
questions for the others here.
I have a question for Mr. Uhalde on women. When I went to a
meeting on another subject during the time that the stimulus
was being considered, there was a huge gathering--I do not
recall the purpose--of women from across the Country. Before a
few Members of Congress were introduced, the person who was
introducing the event said that we were doing a stimulus
package in the Congress and they did not have any indication
that women will get any of these jobs. I was glad I was there
because I indicated that there would be certainly a small
amount in my package, a larger amount in your Department's
package, and that the Administration was fully aware that women
and minorities had been left out of the growth of the sector.
In your testimony, you mention a specific program aimed at
women. Because if minorities are left out, women are a real
afterthought in construction. So would you describe that
program for us, please?
Mr. Uhalde. Yes. We have Women in Apprenticeship in Non-
Traditional Occupations programs, $1 million. We focus it on
apprenticeships and try and ensure with the grantees--I believe
we have five or six grantees--that women are able to get the
training, get the pre-apprenticeships and into apprenticeship
programs principally in the building trades.
We also had $750 million of competitive grants for both
green training and health care and high growth occupations.
Secretary Solis is very interested in making sure the
populations that are left out of high growth occupations get a
shot, and that includes women in non-traditional occupations.
So we put out the solicitations for grant applications and made
emphasis on populations that had been left out traditionally,
including minorities, school dropouts, and veterans populations
that are under served in some of these, and women as well.
Ms. Norton. Thank you. You really do have a haul of money
and I know you will be careful in the way you spend it. I think
you have most of the money for these green jobs and I am
pleased with the thoughtfulness you are inclined to in this
area. The Administration is going to be watching this very
closely.
Mr. Uhalde. Absolutely.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Kampschroer, we had a hearing in May of
2008 where we questioned GSA about, and it surprised us, energy
inefficient products on the GSA's schedules. What is the status
of those products being removed from the schedules? We know
that occasionally an agency may have no choice but we are
talking about products. So I am assuming that these are
products where there might be a choice. Where are we on that so
that agencies cannot have the choice of making the taxpayers
spend more money for energy where there is an available energy
efficient selection for them?
Mr. Kampschroer. There have been new guidelines recently
issued by the Department of Energy addressing that very issue
that you raise of choice and when you should make it and when
you should not.
Ms. Norton. When should you ever make it unless your
infrastructure requires you to make it?
Mr. Kampschroer. That is the idea. That is only where you
cannot use the other materials. But what we have done
internally is we have, first of all, highlighted the electronic
version of all the schedules so all of the energy efficient
products appear with a separate kind of designation within the
schedules. They are segregated. They are the ones that pop up
first when you look for them.
And second of all, we have instituted in the online
ordering system within GSA a warning so that if somebody
inadvertently orders something for which there is a more energy
efficient product, it says you should not be ordering this. Did
you know that there is a law that----
Ms. Norton. That actually is so excellent and so un-
government-like and so un-GSA-like that somebody says oops.
That is what you expect Mr. Helsel to do. Thank you. Yes.
Mr. Kampschroer. The third thing I wanted to mention is
that we are working with the Department of Energy and EPA so
that our database of scheduled items has a direct feed from
their database of approved items so that when we get the ENERGY
STAR designation, we know that it is the most up-to-date
designation of those. In fact, we are meeting with Department
of Energy next week to keep that project going. Then, when that
happens, you know that you can be assured that it is not some
supplier alleging that it is an ENERGY STAR device, that it
actually is and we know that from the source.
Ms. Norton. That is really giving the priority that the
Subcommittee, the Speaker, the House, the Senate expected. I am
very pleased to hear that.
I must ask Mr. Crawley about net zero energy building. I do
not understand what that means.
Mr. Crawley. A net zero energy building is a building that
produces on-site as much energy as it needs over the course of
a year.
Ms. Norton. Now we are talking.
Mr. Crawley. It is the next generation beyond platinum.
Ms. Norton. That is heaven.
Mr. Crawley. It will help us get a long way toward the goal
of really reducing the impacts and----
Ms. Norton. Now I recognize that. What is the largest
building like that in the United States?
Mr. Crawley. The largest one I know of is about 18,000
square feet.
Ms. Norton. That is the wave of the future, people. Make
your own. I am sorry, go ahead.
Mr. Crawley. There are very few buildings and they are
pretty expensive right now. But somebody is paying for them and
thinks it is cost-effective.
Ms. Norton. What is it, kind of a pilot or experimental?
Mr. Crawley. They may be a pilot, experimental or they have
found a donor that thinks it is a worthwhile investment over
the life of that building.
Ms. Norton. So where are we? This is the kind of stuff we
should have been experimenting with a generation ago. I concede
that we did not know very much. One of the big surprises to me
is that our science, which is usually so advanced beyond what
we are able to do, seems not to have been where I might have
expected it to be. I know this is fairly futuristic but I do
not see another way to go. I can see no way to be serious about
climate change going the way we are going.
I went with the Speaker to India. We did not go there
about, for example, their nuclear issues or Pakistan. This was
when we first came into the majority. We went there about
climate change. I tell you, they already have goals for a
carbon footprint that will come nowhere near ours. We went
there to speak to the Chinese. Imagine, having the people who
created the carbon footprint that is destroying the planet
coming to these two countries and saying why don't you all do
your share. It was hard for me to get the words out of my
mouth, particularly at a time when we had not even passed our
energy bill, the first one that we passed.
So as I think about the position that we are all in--that
that would require sacrifice, that it really ought to be you
first in Europe and then we will see what we can do instead--
China and India are ahead of us in part because what they are
bringing online is necessarily more inefficient. They have the
benefit of the science of today.
But there is just no way to avoid our leadership role given
our role in creating the problem in the first place. So looking
at it, that is why I have been so interested in what Mr.
Kampschroer and Mr. Crawley are doing and what feeds in to what
you are doing.
Short of a shortcut through technology that will say okay,
everybody one, two, three, sacrifice, I do not see that
mentality even in the most advanced thinking about greening. In
fact, I see the kind of mentality I see in the health care
bill, which is everybody is going to get everything you get now
and even more, and then we are going to put some more people
into the mix and it is not going to cost the Government any
more and there will be no deficit. I just think that is the
kind of thinking that builds up in the world in which there are
endless resources.
It took a long time for it to click in that we do not have
it. Well, the Malthusian notion we would reproduce ourselves
did not come true. I believe putting as much in technology as
we can is the only serious answer to short-cutting our problems
on the planet before it disappears.
I have only a couple more questions. At the same time I am
trying to green the capital region because of the GSA
footprint, the District of Columbia, one little city, is doing
a lot on its own. We have 98 million square feet in the
national capital region. It is a pretty progressive region.
Are there efforts to coordinate with these folks who can
build upon this? They help us and we help them, not with money
but how we play off of one another?
Mr. Kampschroer. Indeed, there are. One of the areas that
we are working with the District of Columbia in is stormwater
management. We are, jointly, after the significant flooding
along Constitution Avenue in front of the IRS. We have been
working with them to find out A, why did that happen so
cataclysmically, and B, what can we do about it. We have
jointly funded a study which is about to begin to figure out
the appropriate solution to that.
We are looking at all of our projects to increase the
ability to do stormwater management. In fact, we have 400,000
square feet of planted roofs within the District of Columbia
already and over 1 million square feet in the Washington
metropolitan region. We are working with the District of
Columbia on aspects of building technology so that we make sure
that we share the information that we develop in building
technology with the District of Columbia and vice versa. I am
sure there are others that I just----
Ms. Norton. I know. I would like to ask that with COG,
Council of Governments, there be some coordination to take
advantage of the progressive jurisdiction where at least the
national capital region is situated.
Let me say to you, Mr. Kampschroer, I would ask you to look
at this and get back to me within thirty days. The Federal
Government is the biggest ratepayer for water in the District
of Columbia. The District of Columbia has just passed a bill,
actually some months ago, that is just the way the Country
ought to be going. It says that if you have an impervious
surface so that your runoff flows into the Anacostia River out
to the Chesapeake Bay and into our waters, there is going to be
a surface charge. For most homeowners, this is not anything
they can do anything about and must contribute to. This is
aimed at big folks like the Federal Government and office
buildings.
There are a lot of things you can do around your, let us
say, parking lot besides repave it, for example, just to catch
the water. But we believe, based on the charges that the
District of Columbia has begun--the rebate schedule and all has
not come out yet--that the Federal Government would have at
least $1 million more to pay for impervious surfaces such as
parking lots, outer Federal buildings, and the like.
Here is an area where there has not been much reason to
look before. But I would ask you to be in touch with those--I
am sure there are people at GSA who are already aware of this--
and in 30 days give me some idea of how you believe the Federal
Government could keep from being the biggest payer into this
charge for impervious surfaces.
Mr. Kampschroer. I would be happy to do so.
Ms. Norton. In the 2009 conference report for the Financial
Services appropriation where the GSA appropriation is found, I
included a proposal to study the measurable benefits associated
with green roofs in the GSA owned and leased inventory. We used
the national capital region because of the huge footprint here.
Could you give us the status of that study?
Mr. Kampschroer. I cannot because I cannot remember it off
the top of my head. If I could get back to you, I would
appreciate it.
Ms. Norton. In thirty days, if you would, Mr. Kampschroer,
get back to me.
Here is my final question. I am interested in these energy
performance contracts. Would you describe what an energy
performance contract is and whether or not GSA has them? What
is the average amount that we might reap from such contracts? I
do not know if Mr. Helsel has any information on these. He is
saying no. But I believe you have some energy performance
contracts that work.
Mr. Kampschroer. Yes, we do. We have at the moment 52
active energy savings performance contracts either directly
with private firms or with utilities, as well as 14 that have
been completed already and have been paid off.
Ms. Norton. I am sorry. Would you repeat that please?
Mr. Kampschroer. I would be happy to. We have currently
active 52 energy savings performance contracts. We have 14
where they are no longer active because the work has been done
and the investment has been paid off.
Ms. Norton. Where are they located? Across the United
States?
Mr. Kampschroer. Across the United States. Several of them
are here in this area.
Ms. Norton. Have you described what an energy performance
contract is?
Mr. Kampschroer. I am sorry. I just jumped into the
statistics. The energy performance contract is a contract for a
long period of time in which private capital is brought to bear
to increase the energy performance. The payment to the firm
that invests the private capital is made out of the difference
between the energy bill before the capital investment and the
energy bill afterwards. So the savings from reduced energy
consumption pay back the capital investment as well as the
operating costs of the building.
Ms. Norton. Are those generally available across the United
States?
Mr. Kampschroer. They are available across the United
States. We principally use the Department of Energy Super ESPC
program. As well, we are increasing the GSA schedules to have
those kinds of features. There are also private sector energy
savings performance contracts in some areas of the Country. But
it is less prevalent outside the Government than it is in the
private sector, and more prevalently offered by utility firms
where the public utilities commission has provided that
capability with the utilities to do so.
Ms. Norton. I am just trying to figure out why we would not
have them in our buildings in the regions.
Mr. Kampschroer. We do have them across the Country. We are
currently negotiating several even as we speak. We are also----
Ms. Norton. So wherever there is a possibility to have an
energy performance contract, we will engage in such contracts?
Mr. Kampschroer. Yes. Our plan is to significantly expand
our use of energy savings performance contracts. We had that
plan developed before the Recovery Act and we have honestly
shifted our emphasis onto making sure that the Recovery Act
expenditures go quickly. But we are also looking at the
possibility for making sure that in a building where we are
doing the building tune up only, we are looking at the
possibility of using an energy savings performance contract for
doing other systems work in the building so that we will get
more for that building than we are even able to get from the
Recovery Act funds directly.
Ms. Norton. That is an important add-on to make sure that
this is sustainable for the funds we invest.
As you can see, these hearings for me are perhaps a little
atypical. I use them to really educate myself about areas. I
find myself kind of a generalist--most Members are--not having
deep knowledge about even this area that I have been conversant
with ever since coming to Congress. So your testimony has been
very important to my oversight, to giving me indications of the
kinds of things I ought to be doing to be helpful.
I want to thank each and every one of you for the time you
have spent with us this afternoon and to say to you how helpful
you have been. So thank you very much.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:00 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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