today the fact is that the veteran's administration is the sixth highest energy user in the in the federal government and third highest in water consumption so obviously it footprint is significant and efforts to be in the forefront of conservation and reduction are necessary and important all federal agency of course have to make sure that we set an example for report our committee that it is taking efforts not only meet the goals of the president's executive order but for as much as accomplishing i am equally curious to hear what our panel of industry experts have to say about  buildings in the united states are responsible for forty percent of the c o two emissions nearly fourteen percent of the public water use enterprise roughly fourteen percent of the gross domestic product making green building a source of significant economic an environmental opportunity to reduce the impact of these buildings while saving money a recent study from mckinsey and company reports that an investment in energy efficiency including building energy efficiency could generate more than one point two trillion dollars in energy saving reduce energy consumption by twenty three percent and reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by one point one gigaton by two thousand and twenty this would have the same environmental impact as taking the entire fleet of u s passenger vehicles and light trucks off the road with the short time i have today i'd like to focus my comments on on two broad themes first the federal government and the department of veterans affairs is and has been a leader in energy efficiency in green building federal agencies have a tremendous responsibility and power to continue to lead by example and move the building sector to even higher levels of a second the government sector both existing buildings in new construction is an area of great opportunity to save taxpayers money create jobs and save energy and water while protecting the environment for over a decade now during my time at u s and prior to that with the u s environmental protection agency before before that i've been working to advance green building and energy efficient buildings across the nation and around the globe i've had the opportunity to work with countless leaders in n g o s in industry and in government who have worked to accelerate the uptake of green building in the market and to ensure that this green building revolution touches everybody my experience and my experiences of shown me that leadership whether it's paving a path forward overcoming obstacles or pioneering a new best practices has proven to be successful for shifting the market toward dana building as the owner tenant or manager of more than three point three billion square feet of building space valued at more than seven hundred billion dollars the federal government has the country's largest real estate portfolio including many of the nation's most recognized interiors landmarks with this vast portfolio comes the power to forge a greener more energy efficient healthier and prosperous the nation's buildings and communities by leveraging the unparalleled purchasing power of taxpayer dollars to support green building the federal government can not only reduce  significantly and significant vironment footprint but also speed the adoption of green building strategies by the private sector and and save real dollars and resources through reduced utility bills and operating costs recognizing the impact of the federal building sector thirteen federal agencies and departments have made policy commitments to use or encourage lead certification some twenty four million square feet of federally owned or at least building space is currently certified under lead and more than four hundred million square feet of space is registered with these policies coupled with various policies referencing lead in thirty four states and more than one hundred localities are having a market impact on the large larger green building landscape today more than twenty three thousand  building building projects are registered with lee and more than thirty six hundred have earned lead sort of cation this includes the lead silver certified regional field office in reno nevada for the eighteen other registered projects with a diverse real estate thank the veterans affairs committee for the opportunity to discuss the department of veterans affairs and work in transforming our nation's building look forward to working with the committee and the department to ensure that the energy savings and environmental potential of our public buildings are realized thank you thank you very much  goals become more energy efficient in a sustainable manner and thank you for accepting my written testimony for the record today i will highlight the importance of building collaborate with other federal agencies and developing implementing and evaluating federal  forty five percent less energy consumption fifty three percent lower maintenance cost five percent less water use according to two thousand and eight construction report operating costs for green buildings are on average nine percent lower  values or seven point five percent higher they have a three point five percent greater occupancy ratio and provide a total return on investment the lifecycle cost of green buildings is lower than the lifecycle cost of those that are not even the just animal design also offers economic environmental and societal benefit the building decreases its energy consumption the cost of operation of less value increases the production of greenhouse gases decreases for example a planted roof can have significant as a holistic integrated planning that considers all factors that influence a building including the decision whether to build it all however design challenges for high performance for different buildings given the intense use of some buildings such as hospital facilities data center performance measures must be different and the bench need to be adjusted to reflect the use of the building one can still address energy efficiency hospitals in so doing the energy efficiency decisions will be balanced differently a nd health related than they would be in a normal office building we need to have as much emphasis on actual building performance as on the design criteria california is contemplating a standard building performance labeling a prerequisite for time design measure when the building industry and in the federal government also need to expand our measures today we typically concentrate on energy and building we need to remember the buildings are also tools for business as an organization the energy independence and security act of two thousand and seven states that high performance buildings must not only perform well mechanically but must perform to improve the health and enhance performance of the occupants this is particularly important in healthcare facilities where the importance of the work within the building cannot be gas emissions once you measure the collective effects of greenhouse gas production by an organization with buildings as components you can make more informed decisions and tradeoffs we need to look at the way we buy materials travel to and from the building the way we use the building and how it is operating in both office buildings and computer centers integrating the occupants operations with disability operations energy saving as much as fifty percent and also lower the cost of operations health care facilities present particular difficulties and opportunities we need to create conditions and with health care professionals can perform at their best around health care facility is an amalgam of office laboratory hotel data center and industrial facility  are ongoing the creation of jobs across the design engineering manufacturing and construction operations and the green economy and the recovery act is a component of doing that this is an materials on the way to the site the quality of materials we started for example in the ninety's requiring not only our own operators of building materials that were less toxic but also require that again in the contractors it is an ongoing issue to make sure that people who have contracts with the federal government are actually performing according to those we're also examining the as if that's some kind of great environmental benefit to the world and taking credit for this stuff when scientists are telling us politics is much more better much more efficient that you're talking about renewables my has gone over and above to assist us in performing energy assessments across the country we have conducted energy assessments on own facilities as of this year and supplying us educational materials and capability g s a has been working with us to help energy consumption and in numerous ways the u s green building council and the green building institute have been instrumental in helping us with our certification of existing and new we construct  before i go on on about the green program i need to emphasize that our primary mission which i'm sure you would agree is to care for and provide services to veterans and their families everything we do every day that we undertake must uphold and support the sacred responsibility and trust to care for our nation's veterans our green program supports our core mission is simply we believe a smarter and better approach to managing our assets we believe in acting as good stewards for the american people have entrusted to the v a making great strides in conserving resources that are facilities across the country by proactively managing its energy environmental  sustainable building efforts these four program areas of the cornerstone of our green program we have for example reduce the rate of which uses energy building by eleven percent since two thousand and three and we have put energy management  in place at the local level with the addition of dedicated energy managers to support the syllabi we have exceeded our alternative fuel vehicle acquisition mandates and we are now installing to dispense alternative fuels at ten people and stations across the country today ten v a facilities or about seven million girls have earned the certification green building and we are currently in the process of having an additional eleven buildings in campuses being certified as we sit here today to meet federal mandates ensure appropriate management of our utility consumption has recently awarded a contract to install  electronic metering at all on facilities we are also dedicating over four hundred million in recovery act funds to make our facilities more efficient and to add solar wind and other renewable projects for portfolio today we have approximately sixty million dollars dedicated to energy efficiency projects from this money has been a leader in implementing the noble technologies we recently awarded a wind turbine contract that are saying cloud country at the las vegas v a medical center now under construction installing solar panels that we believe will generate up to twenty percent of the electrical needs that facility at the bronx v a medical center  cogeneration plant is planned and funded and with a projected payback in three years as we install a new spinal cord injury unit in place which congress has funded we have connect conducted renewable energy facilities studies that other major  projects that have been authorized and funded by congress such as denver new orleans and orlando and will be employing renewable energy activities at those sites based upon the study next week will be launching what is known as the green ro and other materials designed to educate our employees on simple tips that can make a difference at work to make green real in routine in everyday activities going green means making the right that is the constant struggle that we deal with and the energy managers in the field deal with on a daily basis to make sure we have that right balance that's probably our largest challenge in the competition that i know and some of the facilities from others and what we're doing is developing in house capability in a lot of cases and training our own people obviously times with expertise outside of our realm primarily it is an in house capability  you know example as las vegas when we got the initial funding on las vegas we did not have a lot of these mandates in place three and four years ago so what we've done is we've hired someone to come in and look at vegas example and say what can we do even the parts  that are fully designed and partially under construction what can we do there to include renewables and they have identified that was not originally in the contract that we are going to put in where we believe that will take care of about twenty percent of the energy anyways out to the individual medical centers about three years ago we pulled that all together and created a national energy contracting center all of these contracts are done by a dedicated group of folks that just do energy