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T: 202.667.4500 F: 202.667.2356 E: dcoffi ce@earthjustice.org W: www.earthjustice.org 

September 10, 2010

By e‐mail to: expartecommunications@hq.doe.gov

Daniel Cohen

Assistant General Counsel for Legislation and Regulatory Law

Office of the General Counsel

Department of Energy

1000 Independence Avenue, SW

Washington, DC 20585–0121

Re: Ex Parte Memorandum

On September 2, 2010, the following participants held a meeting at the Department of

Energy (“DOE”): Timothy Ballo and Emma Cheuse (Earthjustice); Kit Kennedy, Christine

Chang, and Meg Waltner (Natural Resources Defense Council or “NRDC”); Cliff Majersik

(Institute for Market Transformation or “IMT”).  The following DOE staff were present in this

meeting: General Counsel Scott Blake Harris, Daniel Cohen, Ami Grace‐Tardy, and Bryan Miller

of DOE Office of General Counsel; Roland Risser and Robert Van Buskirk, DOE Building

Technologies Program.   

During the meeting, the participants advocated for the adoption of robust energy

efficiency standards for Federal buildings.  They also urged DOE to use its legal authority to

maximize energy efficiency more broadly.  They advocated for public transparency and

discussed the importance of collecting energy and GHG emission data for Federal buildings

and making these data publicly available in an accessible format, including information such as

the building’s Energy Star rating.  With respect to new and renovated federal buildings, IMT

advocated for Energy Star Target Finder ratings to be developed during design of the building

and presented online alongside the building’s Energy Star ratings and urged DOE that energy

modeling for federal buildings (including to generate Target Finder ratings) should follow the

COMNET Guidelines and Procedures (available at www.comnet.org).  Participants also

discussed the status of a series of important legal duties that the prior Administration left

unfulfilled and urged DOE to satisfy each deadline without delay, as discussed in Doc. ID No.

DOE‐EERE‐OT‐2010‐0007‐0071, available at regulations.gov.   

Participants also distributed the attached agenda which provides a summary of the

issues discussed.  During the meeting, the participants also distributed and referred to the

following comments Doc. ID Nos. EERE‐OT‐2010‐0007‐0064 (NRDC comments of Aug. 12, 2010)

and DOE‐EERE‐OT‐2010‐0007‐0071 (Earthjustice, NRDC et al. comments of Aug. 12, 2010),

which have been submitted into the docket of EE‐RM/STD‐02‐112 / RIN: 1904‐AC13 and are
Memo – 09.02.10 DOE Meeting    2

attached again to this memo.  In addition, IMT distributed comments, dated September 1, 2010,

for the Docket EE‐RM/STD‐02‐112, addressing building benchmarking and labeling tools and

methodologies (including Energy Star and COMNET), and a fact sheet on building energy code

compliance, which are attached to this memo.  At the meeting, DOE distributed a document

describing a presentation from the Energy.Gov conference on the web‐based tracking system

that DOE plans to release publicly by October 2010, and to populate with data starting in

January 2011.

Thank you to all staff from DOE who participated in this meeting.

        Respectfully submitted,

       

                 

        Emma Cheuse

Earthjustice

        echeuse@earthjustice.org

        Timothy Ballo

        Earthjustice

        tballo@earthjustice.org

     

Cc: Kit Kennedy, Christine Chang, Meg Waltner (NRDC)

Cliff Majersik (IMT)

(via e‐mail)

Enclosures: listed above