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41–988 PDF 2008

FIRST IN A SERIES: GREENING WASHINGTON AND THE NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION 

(110–117) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND 

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

APRIL 17, 2008 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, Vice 

Chair 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

NICK LAMPSON, Texas 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

TED POE, Texas 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY

MANAGEMENT

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia, Chairwoman 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania, 

Vice Chair 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota 

(Ex Officio) 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

(Ex Officio) 

(III) 

(V) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... vi 

TESTIMONY 

Epstein, Jim, Chairman, Board of Directors, D.C. Greenworks .......................... 22 

Hawkins, George, Director, District Department of the Environment, District 

of Columbia ........................................................................................................... 22 

Kelsch, Joan, Environmental Planner, Department of Environmental Service, 

Arlington County .................................................................................................. 22 

Shovan, Robert, Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan 

Washington ........................................................................................................... 22 

Siglin, Doug, Federal Affairs Director, Chesapeake Bay Foundation ................. 22 

Winstead, David L., Commissioner, Public Buildings Service, U.S. General 

Services Administration ...................................................................................... 6 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Altmire, Hon. Jason, of Pennsylvania .................................................................... 51 

Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, of the District of Columbia ................................. 52 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Kelsch, Joan ............................................................................................................. 55 

Hawkins, George ...................................................................................................... 61 

Shovan, Robert ......................................................................................................... 69 

Siglin, Douglas ......................................................................................................... 84 

Winstead, David L. .................................................................................................. 92 

vi 


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41988.003
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41988.004
(1) 

FIRST IN A SERIES: GREENING WASHINGTON 

AND THE NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION 

Thursday, April 17, 2008 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC

BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:13 a.m., in Room 

2165, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton 

[Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Ms. NORTON. Good morning to all, and I am happy to welcome 

all of you to today’s hearing. I thank our panelists especially for 

coming to offer testimony in this first of several hearings the Subcommittee is conducting on climate change and energy issues. Because of our Subcommittee’s jurisdiction over Federal leasing, construction, and economic development, we have a special obligation 

and a special opportunity to ensure that in carrying out these missions the Federal Government is an appropriate national environmental partner and leader, beginning with the National Capital 

Region, where the Federal Government is the preeminent leader in 

the region itself. 

Last year this Congress began to face the seriousness of the escalating financial and environmental costs of existing energy policy, 

and the Subcommittee itself has made a good start. The Subcommittee’s provisions became part of the path-breaking Energy 

Independence and Security Act of 2007, which the President signed 

as Public Law 110-140. The Subcommittee’s provisions authorized 

high-efficiency light replacement; a photovoltaic provision; extension of life cycling calculations for government energy contracts out 

to 40 years, to have a greater beneficial effect on financing energyefficient projects than previously was possible; and the creation of 

an Office of High-Performance Green Buildings that is required to 

coordinate with the Department of Energy, which is focusing on 

green issues in the private sector. 

In July, the Subcommittee held a hearing focused on low-cost 

fixes for energy conservation, titled ′′Federal Leadership by Example on Energy Conservation: No Cost Quick and Easy Steps for Immediate Results.′′ This hearing will examine the range of ′′green 

thinking′′ and the steps being taken, planned, or that should be 

taken, especially by the Federal Government as this region’s leader, but also by local agencies, commercial developers, businesses 

and organizations to improve the environment and protect energy 

2 

conservation and efficiency in existing buildings and new construction. 

We begin this series by looking at the National Capital Region 

because of the Federal Government’s outsized presence here, particularly its huge leasing and construction footprint that is unmatched anywhere else in the Nation. The Federal Government is 

in a position to provide environmental leadership nationwide because of its consistent presence in the construction and leasing 

market, especially here, where Uncle Sam is the major influence on 

the region’s daily life and can set the example for the public and 

private sectors throughout the United States. 

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, or positioning buildings in order to reduce the need for cooling or heating 

the building. Green buildings include reduced-flow toilets and low 

water-need plants for landscaping. 

Green building improves the indoor environment with the use of 

nontoxic chalks and adhesives, nonformaldehyde 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 and the 

Chesapeake Bay by promoting practices that reduce the impact of 

structures on the environment, by mitigating the effects of storm 

water runoff, using green roofs, cisterns and permeable pavers, locating buildings close to mass transit, and including bike racks and 

storage units. 

This Subcommittee is especially interested in new frontiers in 

green thinking and action, in greening and conservation practices 

such as reusing energy and water, in various types of green roofs, 

especially for existing buildings, and the difference and value 

among the various LEED designations in energy saving technology, 

and in reducing practices that harm the environment in constructing and leasing near waterways. 

We also have a strong interest in comparisons of cost to benefit, 

and whether savings in energy and cost are actually resulting. For 

example, testimony was offered at our recent hearing on the Capitol complex that using photovoltaics here in the Rayburn Building 

would not be cost-effective. 

There are several buildings in the backyard of the United States 

Capitol that exemplify green building. The Washington Nationals’ 

Stadium is the first LEED-certified sports stadium in the United 

States. The Nationals’ Stadium achieved its LEED Silver rating in 

part because of its bike racks, its green roof, and its use of lowemitting materials during construction. 

Just to the east of the Nationals’ Stadium, the new Department 

of Transportation building, authorized by this Committee, sits on 

the banks of the Anacostia River, one of the most polluted rivers 

in America. Federal structures are heavy contributors to the estimated 75 to 90 percent of the storm water runoff to the river. HowVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:14 May 04, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\41988 JASON
3 

ever, the DOT building has a 68,000 square foot green roof, one of 

the largest green roofs on the East Coast. 

In addition to the DOT green roof, which limits storm water runoff into the Anacostia River, the DOT building has energy-efficient 

boiler systems, heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, 

and other building operations systems to maximize energy efficiency. 

The recent green attention to the Anacostia River needs to be repeated nationwide around the literally hundreds of polluted rivers. 

And this recent attention also needs to be much more the case in 

this region. Many Federal buildings, particularly in the District 

and Maryland, border or are close to waterways, giving Federal authorities particular responsibility for assisting clean water efforts 

here in managing real estate and in managing construction. 

The GSA has long engaged in energy conservation efforts well before climate change issues became prominent because the Agency 

has understood the cost implications. However, the Agency’s efforts 

fall far short of what we now know will be required to meet what 

scientists tell us about the global risk we face and the energy crisis 

that is already upon us. 

Surely the Federal Government should be the first to step up in 

its leasing and construction. This hearing will help the Subcommittee to consider the benefit as well as the cost of any new 

requirements and new legislation. 

I am pleased now to hear remarks from our Ranking Member, 

Mr. Graves. 

Mr. GRAVES. Thank you, Madam Chair, for holding this hearing. 

And thank you to all our witnesses for being here. I in particular 

want to thank Public Buildings Commissioner David Winstead for 

his testimony today. 

GSA’s Public Buildings Service manages approximately 95.6 million rentable square feet of space in 190 federally owned buildings 

and 500 leased buildings in the National Capital Region. As the 

largest property owner and manager of office and warehouse space 

in the National Capital area, GSA has an opportunity to lead by 

example. 

Part of GSA’s mission is to help its client agencies meet their environmental obligations. GSA practices energy conservation, it 

builds green, it provides recycled services to its client agencies. 

There are simple and cost-effective steps GSA can take to reduce 

energy consumption in Federal buildings. Even small reductions in 

the energy consumed in each building can have a large cumulative 

effect. 

For example, GSA operates buildings at costs that are 5 percent 

lower than the private sector and pays 12 percent less for its utilities. These savings are the result of energy conversation solutions 

GSA has already implemented. Greening initiatives, like the ones 

I mentioned above, can benefit the environment and save taxpayers 

money, and make a lot of sense when they result in improved efficiency and real energy reductions, and are done in the most costeffective way. However, when done without regard to the costs or 

real benefit to the environment, they can be completely illogical 

and a waste of taxpayers’ money. 

4 

Green roof projects can be a good example of both these categories. While installing a green roof on new construction makes 

all the sense in the world, installing that same roof on an existing 

building will require expensive modifications to support a heavier 

roof and generally doesn’t make economic sense. 

A couple weeks ago we had a hearing on some of the initiatives 

occurring right here at the Capitol complex. And it was noted that 

the House spent around $80,000 last year on carbon credits. Meanwhile, that money didn’t reduce our pollution one bit. Essentially, 

the House paid for somebody else’s efficiency and didn’t do a thing 

to use that money towards improving its efficiency. There was no 

real benefit whatsoever. 

Paying for carbon credits in my opinion doesn’t do a thing to reduce pollution. All it is doing is paying for somebody else to be efficient and doesn’t do anything to fix the problems that we have 

here. If we are going to spend taxpayers’ money, we should be getting something for it. It seems that all we are doing is ridiculous 

things around here at the Capitol that don’t take into account any 

of the costs or any improved efficiency. It is all done for the purposes of putting out a press release that sounds good and tries to 

make the House look good. 

I hope the rest of the Federal Government is not doing the same 

thing. If we are going to spend taxpayers’ money for these projects, 

then we should see some real benefit to it and have it done in a 

cost-effective way. 

Again, I thank our witnesses for being here, and I look forward 

to the testimony. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, thank you, Mr. Ranking Member, Mr. Graves. 

You will note that I am particularly interested in cost-effectiveness, 

as I said in my earlier remarks. But I think that the Speaker is 

doing exactly the right thing. We cannot sit here enacting laws, 

telling businesses they must spend money to in fact meet the challenge, and we do not do anything. We should not only be first; if 

there is any experimenting to be done we should do it, rather than 

to require others to do it. 

So, yes, we will not always be on the same page about what techniques to use, but I don’t think there is any question now that we 

have a serious energy crisis in this country and none of us is doing 

enough. 

This Subcommittee hearing will help us to hear the plusses and 

minuses of what we are doing. I am very anxious to hear that from 

all of our witnesses. 

We will have two witnesses after Mr. Winstead. We will have 

witnesses across the board from the public and private sector. 

Mr. Winstead, before you begin your testimony, I do want to indicate to you that last time, we were put in the position of barely receiving your testimony and had indicated to you that that was unacceptable. And so I am going to put on the record the following 

remarks. That hearing was on the Old Post Office, and you indicated that the late testimony would not happen again. We don’t 

have this hearing just to hear from you. We need to hear your testimony so that the staff can prepare questions and we can understand more what you are saying. Testimony on this green hearing 

arrived at 5:01 last night, Wednesday night, less than 24 hours 

5 

prior to the hearing, and well past the 48-hour framework in the 

witness letter. Even that puts a real burden on the staff, with only 

2 days to go; but, of course, with hardly any time to go, giving the 

staff, upon whom we depend certainly, at least partially, you just 

are essentially giving them no time. 

When the Old Post Office hearing of April 10th was originally 

scheduled, it was part of a two-part hearing. It was to be on the 

Old Post Office and, of course, on green initiatives. And the GSA 

was told by phone on both April 2nd and again on April 3rd to plan 

for both topics. And the hearing date then was told orally by April 

10th. The Subcommittee staff is correct, even before their letter 

goes out to inform Agency staff orally, so that everyone will have 

the earliest notice. We could not get agreement on the greening 

part from the Minority because we needed it over the weekend, not 

because they were unwilling. So GSA was told that this part of the 

hearing would be today, April 17th. Remember, GSA already had 

started, apparently, or should have, green testimony in anticipating 

an April 10th hearing. The GSA always gives the answer that it 

is not us, it is them. And ′′them′′ is always the mean, old, slow, old, 

OMB. I am sure that that is the case some of the time. 

I very much recall when my good friend Mr. Shuster, my Republican friend, was Chair of this Committee. He was continually frustrated with timely submissions from GSA, and got so frustrated 

that at a hearing that he held, he would not accept late material 

at all, just simply asked questions. 

I don’t want to be pushed to that. What I did, when staff suggested that that was one of my options, was to ask them to go to 

the law and the circulars. And here is what the law requires: 

Submissions. Before an Agency transmits proposed legislation on 

a report, including testimony outside the executive branch, it shall 

be required—it shall submit the proposed legislation or report or 

testimony to OMB for consideration and clearance. Report is defined in section 5(b) as views prepared by an Agency on a pending 

bill. GSA was specifically told that there was no pending bill. We 

don’t know if there is going to be a bill. That is one of the reasons 

we want to hear this testimony, to see if any legislation is required 

at all. 

So, literally, this testimony by the circular wasn’t even required 

to be submitted. And if in fact it is going to be submitted, then we 

are going to have to come to an agreement between you, us, and 

OMB about timely submission of testimony in order to avoid further steps. Mr. Winstead. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Madam Chair, I appreciate it. It is great to be before the Committee again. I thank both you and Congressman 

Graves for your leadership and support of GSA and our program. 

I also recognize your comments about the issue of the process of 

our testimony getting up here on time. As I said to you before the 

hearing, I will make sure that I meet with OMB and figure out 

how this clearance process can in fact be expedited. I know that we 

sent it up as soon as we got it back from OMB last evening at 5 

p.m. But I do recognize both the circular you mentioned, section 

5(b) requirements, and I have been told there were, because of the 

nature of the testimony today and their interest in this panel, 

there is obviously a lot of involvement with DOE and EPA and in 

6 

working partnership with GSA and our programs both on the energy side and, obviously, sustainability side. 

It is my understanding, and I will verify this in following up this 

hearing and with the Committee, that took a little bit longer to try 

to get some feedback. So I will meet with them and I will make 

sure that we are in the future—as, obviously, we had some issues 

here in the last week or two—try to get it timely. I think we did 

receive notice. As you said, we knew this was coming, but the notice of the hearing came on April the 8th. But I am sensitive to 

your issues, and I will meet with OMB and try to see how we can 

expedite that. 

TESTIMONY OF DAVID L. WINSTEAD, COMMISSIONER, PUBLIC 

BUILDINGS SERVICE, U.S. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Madam Chair, I am very pleased to be here. I 

think as you mentioned, and Congressman Graves, GSA is in fact 

a leader by example, and we are very focused on some unusual new 

buildings and retrofitting, through major R&A as well as minor 

R&A, our existing inventory. 

I would also tell you, and I think it is helpful for you all to be 

aware of this, that the industry is very engaged in this. Just in the 

last 3 weeks there have been national conferences held by the 

Urban Land Institute, by the Real Estate Roundtable. 

I was sitting two nights ago at dinner with BOMA, the National 

Association of Industrial and Office Parks, ULI, and a lot of these 

industry groups that are facing and committed to greening and 

LEED certification and other energy-sustainable features in our 

buildings. This Committee in prior hearings has talked a lot about 

the consumption of energy, some 40 percent of energy consumed by 

the built environment. So we really do understand our obligation 

and leadership of this Committee and Congress in that regard. I 

do think it is a very positive message, however, in terms, as you 

mentioned, in terms of what we are doing. 

I also want to acknowledge that there are a number of people 

here today that I should give credit to in terms of our efforts; obviously, your focus on the National Capital Region. We have got Bart 

Bush, who is ARA for the National Capitol Region for PBS; Amy 

Hudson who is our Energy Coordinator in NCR; Michael Carter, 

who is our sustainability manager; Mike McGill, who you all know 

well, works with this Committee, is our communication legislative 

person at NCR. Also from my staff, Kevin Kampschroer, who is sitting right behind me, is our Acting Director of our Federal HighPerformance Green Building Office at GSA that was formed subsequent to the Energy Act signed in December by the President. Also 

Pat Fee, which I know the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member would be very interested in knowing what we are doing in 

terms of managing our properties and getting greater efficiency 

and actions by our property managers both in their management 

of the buildings and equipment, but also leadership with our tenants so we can educate them on actions they can take. And Pat 

Fee, who leads up that nationally for GSA, is here today. 

You know, since 1985, Federal agencies have been very effective 

in reducing energy intensity in Federal buildings. And if you look 

7 

back from 1985 to 2005—and it is increasingly enormously since 

then—but we had a 23 percent decline in energy consumption. We 

have also found that the same Federal inventory has cut carbon 

emissions, which obviously under this 2007 act is requiring that we 

have essentially carbon-neutral buildings by 2030, which is a major 

goal, a very aggressive goal. But we are, because of the actions we 

have taken, we have saved about 3.3 million metric tons in terms 

of reducing that amount in terms of carbon emissions since 1990. 

GSA has also cut energy consumption overall by 30 percent since 

1985 and carbon emissions by 281,000 metric tons. We are using 

green principles, as you know, in our building program, looking at 

efficient use of energy, looking at efficient water consumption and 

water equipment in buildings that gets less water use and higher 

efficiencies there, as well as using recycled materials. 

We are also promoting space that—as our mantra really—is delivering productive and efficient workspace to the Federal employee 

at the best value to the taxpayer. This Committee is one of our 

major stakeholders in that regard, and we very much appreciate 

your interest in this. 

As the first Federal Agency to join the U.S. Green Building 

Council, which is very engaged in this, I will, I told the Ranking 

Minority Member, Madam Chair, before you came in, that they 

have a huge demand on them now by the private sector as well as 

us in submission of green buildings. But since 2003 we have basically required all our new construction projects to use the Green 

Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design 

rating system as our design criteria, with the goal of obtaining silver designation. 

To date GSA has earned LEED ratings in 25 of our buildings, the 

most of any governmental organization at the State, Federal level. 

Using green to measure our success is a part of our daily operations in our capital program, which as you know, is, on average, 

about 1.2 billion a year of expenditure. In studying 19 of these 

buildings, of these LEED buildings, we have actually discovered 

the following: that these buildings do reduce indoor water use and 

have reduced indoor water use by over 38 percent as compared to 

the baseline year. And they also represent about 33 million kilowatt hours of green power purchases. 

As the market becomes increasingly aware of commitment to sustainability, GSA is also—because half of our inventory, as you well 

know, 175 million square feet, is delivered by the private sector, generic office space in most cases, but we do have some specialty 

buildings like the FBI field offices. But we are developing new 

green, in the leasing side, new green lease provisions, and updating 

existing provisions to become standard lease requirements in 2007, 

in this year—or last year, rather. 

We have realty professionals that are delivering LEED-certified—we have 13 LEED buildings, 6 silver and 7 gold. Also our 

energy conservation efforts between 2003 and 2007 have achieved 

an 8.2 percent reduction in energy consumption. We are operating 

our buildings, as Ranking Minority Member Graves said, at 1.6 

percent below comparative buildings in the private sector. And we 

pay about 10 percent less for utilities as a result of these energy 

efforts in our management of the buildings. 

8 

Some of this reduction is directly attributable to the investments 

both that Congress and this Committee has approved in terms of 

major R&A renovation as well as stand-alone energy conversation 

projects over the last decade and a half. 

Here a considerable part of this reduction is a result of a concerted effort by GSA property managers working closely with our 

customers. Madam Chair, last year at the hearing you and the 

Committee were very interested in what we are doing to encourage 

energy saving activity in the management of buildings and also in 

terms of working with our tenants in both training them and providing leadership. And we have incorporated tenants in an energy 

conservation activity. 

And I would just like to highlight some of these just recent activities. I just sent a note out, or memo out, in February to the 

heads of all our properties around the country, highlighting the aspects of the new Energy Independence Act of 2007, which was 

signed in December, and providing recommended course of actions. 

We have sent out newsletters to energy managers and building 

managers which highlight practical, easily implemented tips of energy conservation in buildings. 

And this month we have designated April, because of Earth Day, 

as the Energy Resource and Conservation Month at GSA. And we 

are really urging every region to sort of heighten their conservation 

efforts. We are also stressing best practices. And I have submitted 

to the Committee I believe, or could with this testimony, what several regions are doing in regards of perfecting communications with 

tenants to get their commitment and to get their action in turning 

off lights and other energy saving measures. In parallel with this 

sort of outward-facing initiatives we have designated energy managers for every building in the GSA inventory. We are operating 

and implementing standard performance criteria for property managers as a part of their performance plan. It is a critical element 

in our annual review of their performance. 

And the key techniques that we are focused on in some of the 

building managers, and the tenants, are clearly the issues of turning off perimeter lights. I remember one time, I think a year ago 

at a hearing, you commented about your concern, which is shared 

by us and by many, about lights on in Federal buildings and properties that are unnecessary. In fact, a lot of the cleaning, as you 

know, because of our contracts with NISH providers is during the 

day, but not using space heaters as a part of this, lighting, retrofitting, adjusting lighting control systems to match the tenant 

needs, to replace exterior and emergency lights with LED, which 

is not L-E-E-D but L-E-D, which is light emitting diode light fixtures, and also reducing gas engines with electric motors in our 

buildings. 

We are also meeting with our principal custodial contractor to reinforce the roles that they have. I have dealt and met with NISH, 

as an organization representing a lot of these contractors, to make 

sure that they are training and that our contractors are in fact 

doing energy conservation actions, cleaning with green building 

materials and cleaning, as well as revising specific standards in our 

contracts with our custodial providers to reinforce energy conservation activities. 

9 

Specifically of interest here today, and that is why I brought in 

some of our crowd from NCR here, is that we have really made 

enormous strides. And I think it is great that it has been in our 

largest region, the National Capital Region, but we really have 

made major strides in incorporating green programs. In particular, 

a lot of that has been in our Federal inventory here at the NCR. 

In new construction of green buildings, NCR has earned three 

LEED Gold ratings, one in an owned product, an owned building, 

as well as two in leased projects. The Suitland Federal Center 

Maryland, is GSA-owned, and that is the new NOAA facility. That 

was the owned product. And then we have in Arlington, Virginia, 

we have the EPA buildings which were leased, which were called 

Potomac Yard One and Two. 

Another example of NCR’s green building efforts is the development, as you know well, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, 

and Explosives, ATF, new headquarters down on New York Avenue 

next to the Metro in the NoMa area. This was once a brownfield 

site. It was previously used by the District Government, Public 

Works. And there was also an abandoned railroad trestle which required cleanup. NCR destroyed the trestle, remediated some 79,000 

tons of contaminated soil, and now we have what I think will prove 

to be a landmark, probably award-winning architectural building 

designed by Moshe Safdie right next to a Metro station, which 

again is a sustainable design. 

The more we can drive Federal employee ridership on this Metro 

system, getting them out of automobiles, the better off we will be. 

I also mention suburban Maryland. We have the Food and Drug 

Administration at White Oak. We have some really remarkable features there and I would urge the Committee, if they have not been 

there, we will be happy to give you a tour. We have sustainable 

new construction features, including natural ventilation, solar heating, reduced water consumption, the use of recycled content in 

buildings. We also have a co-generation facility out there which 

provides reliable uninterrupted onsite electric generation for the facilities currently occupied on the campus. And this co-generation 

facility is one of 10 projects in the NCR where, essentially under 

existing authority, we have been able to leverage private sector 

capital through energy saving performance contracts, as well as 

those with the utility energy saving contracts to finance this new 

co-generation facility. 

Another major project is NCR’s Heating Operation and Transmission District, or HOTD as it is known, which provides steam 

and chilled water utility service to government and quasi-government customers. NCR completed the chilled water expansion cogeneration project in December 2004. This was a $69 million 

project, and it installed eight chillers and co-generation facilities in 

our central plant. And it also provides non-Federal—well, there are 

also non-direct Federal agency users like the Smithsonian that 

have their energy supplied by that plant with this new investment. 

Green roofs, as you mentioned, and the Committee is interested, 

and over the last 2 years there have been four NCR buildings that 

have come on line that feature extensive green roofs. And these 

planted roofs can really substantially reduce rainwater runoff during storms and provide significant insulation for the building. 

10 

As you will hear from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the biggest challenge to the estuary system of the Potomac, Anacostia, 

and Chesapeake Bay is in fact runoff. So these roofs do contribute 

enormously to mitigating that. And those where we currently have 

these four projects are the Census Bureau headquarters in the 

Suitland Federal Center, which has an 85,000 square foot green 

roof, the NOAA Satellite Operations Center at the Suitland Center, 

which has a green roof of 110,000 square feet, and ATF on New 

York Avenue, I mentioned earlier, has a green roof of 55,000 

square feet. And also as you mentioned, DOT, which has a green 

roof of 65,000 square feet. 

I would also note that landscaping and water conservation is important to this whole effort as well. And building green isn’t just 

confined to the building itself. It extends to the landscape. And 

NCR has designed and maintained more than 100 federally owned 

landscaped sites in the Washington metropolitan area. We have 

utilized a variety of landscape materials to minimize our reliance 

on turf, which requires, obviously, more irrigation, chemicals, energy and water consumed, and have chosen plant materials in 

these hundred landscape sites that can essentially tolerate drought 

to a greater extent than the turf, and also have a natural sort of 

pest resistance. So we are saving in terms of pest control. 

NCR also composts all of its yard waste, comprising about 330 

tons alone in 2007, using 100 percent organic poultry manure 

spread on these landscapes. I would note, Madam Chair, back in 

my earlier days in my law firm, I recall that was one of the biggest 

threats—you will hear later from Chesapeake Bay—is runoff from 

poultry waste on the Eastern Shore. And we are actually recycling 

that through our use in some of these landscapes. 

So we actually received the first Rain Leader Award from EPA 

in October of last year for innovative low-impact design projects in 

one of the EPA headquarter buildings in the Federal Triangle. GSA 

and EPA have developed this project, in partnership to convert an 

area that headquarters had previously used as a construction 

project staging area, into quite an attractive landscape garden. 

Some of the other issues in green operations, just to move this 

to a conclusion, extend beyond just new construction, green roofs 

and modernization, but also focus on buildings in our inventory, 

some 154 buildings where we are actually paying utility bills and 

institute changes in operating procedures to really save energy and 

obviously money spent on utility bills, as well as improving management. And we have done that through monitoring energy consumption on a monthly basis, conducting tenant awareness programs, performing building audits, and providing training. 

I would mention that in the past our energy audits had been administered on about 10 percent of our buildings on an annual basis. 

With the new law, that is going to have to go up to about 25 percent in those that are worst performers. So essentially the new act 

requires more audits sooner for the worst-performing buildings. 

Also advanced metering has helped us manage power consumption more strategically. I think at the last hearing that I was here, 

we talked about a surge issue and a high-heat temperature issue 

about two summers ago and how our prediction of energy and manVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:14 May 04, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\41988 JASON
11 

aging the energy supplies in that building were able to control consumption and save money. 

We also in 2007 reduced energy consumption in these 154 buildings by 6.6 percent over the 2003 base. And we are procuring currently about 3 percent from renewable energy sources. Recycling is 

a part of this as well, as you mentioned. In all three branches of 

government, GSA is helping some 100 Federal agencies in that regard. Our recycling contractors pick up paper, cardboard, cans, bottles from 120 buildings, housing more than 110,000 employees. And 

in 2007 we had 8,000 tons of materials collected and sold, generating an additional revenue of some $355,000. 

Diverting that amount of waste from landfills actually saved 

some $1.2 million in landfill disposal fees, avoided some 25,000 

cubic yards of landfill, saved 3 million gallons of oil, and also 56 

million gallons of water. 

The new act, as I mentioned, does present some new challenges 

for the Federal Government and for GSA. For the first time, GSA 

is going to be required to reduce consumption of fossil fuel-generated energy in new buildings and major renovations. And for new 

design, our target is to be about 55 percent below comparable private sector commercial buildings in 2010. 

Much more difficult, quite frankly, is the goal of using 100 percent nonfossil fuel-generated energy in our buildings by 2030. And 

this is quite a challenge. And I would tell you that it is going to 

require GSA to meet with industry, to meet with BOMA and some 

of the other people testifying today, to be able to achieve that goal. 

It will not be easy. 

I would also mention that we continue to be a national leader in 

terms of purchase and use of renewable power. In 2006 we had 

about 4.5 percent of our energy generated by renewable sources 

and through the use of energy certificates. If given the authority 

to expand—I think the last time I spoke to this Committee I did 

tell you that we were going to submit legislation, which we have, 

called the General Services Enhancement Act, that is currently before Congress and will allow us to extend authority for utility contracts from 10 to 20 years. Without that kind of extension, we cannot provide the economies in renewable energy that we think we 

need nor benefit from relatively inexpensive energy that can be 

generated from some of these sources. The least cost-efficient is in 

fact wind power. 

In conclusion, I do hope that this testimony and our submissions 

highlight that I feel GSA is, in fact, in a leadership position in this 

regard. Obviously, our impact on the National Capital Region, both 

in our own building inventory as well as our leasing actions, is 

enormous. Twenty percent of the commercial real estate industry 

in Washington, D.C. is driven by our leasing actions. 

And so our requirement, for example, by 2010 to have Energy 

Star building systems or rated buildings is going to have an impact 

in a positive way, but we also hope with that we can have adequate 

competition as well. 

So Madam Chair, Ranking Minority Member Graves, I do want 

to thank you for this opportunity. And I would be happy—I know 

we submitted a lot to the Committee, I have a bunch of experts 

12 

here behind me that have answers to absolutely every question, 

and I will try to answer any that you have at this point. 

Ms. NORTON. They are certainly invited, when you think they are 

relevant, to answer questions. 

You have a reason to be proud of the very large roofs, DOT headquarters for example, which I mentioned and you mentioned both. 

Does the DOT have a LEED rating? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Madam Chair, DOT does not have a LEED rating, although it has a green roof, as you mentioned and I mentioned. And that is because when we actually signed that lease, it 

was actually before the requirement that I have currently given. So 

it is not LEED-certified, unfortunately. 

Ms. NORTON. Does the ATF building have a LEED rating? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Yeah. When it is totally completed. We still have 

a bunch of punchlist items, but it is going to be submitted. 

Ms. NORTON. So your testimony is both the—your testimony is 

that the ATF has a LEED rating? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. It is going to be rated. Unfortunately, we have to 

complete—there are still some punchlist buildout issues there that, 

once completed, it will be in the LEED certification. DOT is not because, unfortunately, we contracted for that, and we have a—basically, you have to have one full year of operations to get that certification. So we are still in that process with the ATF building. 

Ms. NORTON. So your testimony is you are seeking LEED ratings 

for both buildings? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. We are seeking LEED rating for the ATF building. And one full year of operations is—— 

Ms. NORTON. You are not seeking a LEED rating for—the DOT 

building may be in better—may be better able to receive a LEED 

rating than the ATF building. Are you seeking a LEED rating for 

the DOT building? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. We are not. When we contracted for that building 

and the requirements in that 1998 period, we did not have the 

LEED requirements in these current 2007 requirements when that 

lease—— 

Ms. NORTON. The testimony I don’t understand, because the ATF 

building preceded—— 

Mr. WINSTEAD. That was the DOT building I was commenting 

on. 

Ms. NORTON. I know. The ATF building preceded the DOT building. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. The DOT building preceded the ATF building. 

Ms. NORTON. The ATF building, that contract was put out many 

years ago. It took forever to get out. I certainly do not believe that 

the DOT building preceded the ATF building. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Madam Chair, I will get you all the information 

on DOT in terms of what the requirements are when we signed 

that contract with JBG and the ATF building so that you understand when those contracts were signed and commitments versus 

our requirements at that time, and also obviously what we are now 

trying to seek with the ATF building. I am being told by both Bart 

and Kevin that the DOT building will not receive LEED designation. 

Madam Chair, I would be happy to also do—— 

13 

Ms. NORTON. I don’t understand Federal policy on LEED designations. One of the things we are looking for is for the Federal 

Government to set an example. You know, State governments know 

that if the Federal Government builds a building, it tries to get it 

LEED-certified. Is there a cost to getting a building LEED-certified? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. There are fees that are paid. And the biggest 

cost—— 

Ms. NORTON. Has OMB authorized those fees to be paid? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Yes, ma’am. On our new construction projects we 

are in fact—— 

Ms. NORTON. You have got two new construction projects, certainly the most recent ones here, which you are telling me are not 

LEED-certified, but OMB does in fact allow you to spend Agency 

funds to get LEED certifications. I don’t understand why that did 

not occur for those buildings. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Well, I will get you background on both DOT in 

terms of when we signed the contracts with the contractor and the 

developer of that building, which is JBG, and what the requirements were for us at that point in terms of LEED-certified, as I 

mentioned, what we are committed to now. And you know—— 

Ms. NORTON. Can a building be LEED-certified only when the 

contract is let, or can you ask for LEED certification once the building is open? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. You can ask for LEED certification after a building has been built, but my understanding is the features at DOT, 

I think the SFO for DOT was in 1999, before—and we adopted 

LEEDs in 2003. We have added green features such as a green 

roof, but it is not enough, really, to certify, apparently, for everything. 

Ms. NORTON. Have you sought LEED certification? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. We have not for DOT. 

Ms. NORTON. You do not believe that with all the energy efficiency in that building and the huge green roof that it would be 

LEED-certified at any level? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Madam Chair, I am being told that it would be— 

that we essentially would have had to redesign the building, after 

contract commitments were made in 1999, to have done enough in 

order to have gotten this building either certified or silver. So I am 

being told that, unfortunately, our requirements started—or we 

started in 2003 with LEED certification on lease construction, new 

construction. But these—— 

Ms. NORTON. I don’t—— 

Mr. WINSTEAD. I will be happy to get you—— 

Ms. NORTON. I don’t want to belabor this point. For the record, 

is it your policy to seek LEED certifications for all new construction now? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. Particularly since you say this should be done at 

the beginning on, does GSA incorporate green requirements and 

LEED requirements when it puts out a contract to construct? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Yes, we do. We have, both in terms of our facilities standards, P100, as well as our design and the ASHRAE equipment standards, we do have those requirements within our conVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:14 May 04, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\41988 JASON
14 

struction contracts to have sustainable green buildings. And we 

also look for, obviously, the energy efficiency in the building. We 

look at siting, design and construction compatibility as well. 

So all those factors are taken into consideration in getting a 

green building designation. We actually have 70 projects in that 

pipeline now to have buildings certified. We have some 70 that are 

currently in the Green Building Council to get certified. 

Ms. NORTON. Your testimony is that all projects now are going 

to be LEED- or Green Globes-certified? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. LEED. 

Ms. NORTON. LEED-certified? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. That is very important testimony. We very much 

appreciate that testimony. It sets the kind of example we think we 

will be unable to get lots of others to set if they don’t see that we 

are willing to go through the process ourselves. 

You testified about an impressive decline in energy consumption, 

23 percent. How was that achieved? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. That was achieved basically in terms of both updating, through major R&A projects this Committee authorized, as 

well as minor, both with Energy Star equipment in remodeling 

projects, as well as looking at issues such as computer and task 

lighting in the interior of the building, compact fluorescent lamps, 

Energy Star products, looking at basically actions around in terms 

of energy glazed windows and heating and cooling systems that are 

ASHRAE standard and Energy Star-rated. 

So that is what we are essentially doing and focusing on in terms 

of our modernization, is lighting, retrofitting control systems; and 

occupancy sensors are also other techniques and equipments that 

create the energy savings. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, one thing that Congress continues to turn out 

is courthouses. We don’t build lots of other things, but courthouses 

we build. Do courthouses get LEED ratings? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Yes. And we are—the most—I guess the one that 

is going to be completed and opened, it is the newest, is up in 

Springfield, Illinois—I mean Springfield, Massachusetts. And it is 

actually going to be LEED-certified. 

And again, as I mentioned earlier, you have to basically have a 

full year of operation before the Green Building Council will give 

that certification. But we are going to be getting certified. And 

what we have seen, which I think is very positive, is that the paybacks for some of these new lighting systems, HVAC, solar and the 

like, are becoming shorter. That has changed enormously. I think 

if you look back 5 years ago, some of the paybacks were 10, 12 

years. Now we are looking at the payback in terms of these new 

energy systems being cut in half in 5 years. 

Ms. NORTON. For what kinds of systems? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. For lighting systems, for HVAC systems, for 

solar—— 

Ms. NORTON. And payback cut in half. This is very important for 

us to hear. Payback cut in half, meaning—— 

Mr. WINSTEAD. In terms of amount of years to recoup capital. 

Ms. NORTON. So give us an example of the amount of years we 

are talking about. 

15 

Mr. WINSTEAD. If you look back 5 years ago, we were seeing payback periods of 10 to 12 years for some of these technologies. And 

now, for example, with control systems within, electronic control 

systems on the electric consumption buildings, we are seeing paybacks of about 3.8 years. So, under 4 years. 

Ms. NORTON. And in 3.8 years the system has paid for itself? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. That is correct. You are recouping the cost that 

is the additional cost for this more energy-efficient lighting system 

in basically 4 years. We are looking at HVAC paybacks now between 6 and 8 years on average. And about 4 years ago, the industry and GSA were looking more in the neighborhood of a decade 

long to recoup those asset investments. 

As you know, before we proceed on any of these prospectuses, we 

do cost estimates in terms of return based on revenue to the Federal Building Fund. And now these new systems are returning revenue, and we get a higher return because their payback and efficiency of them is shorter than it used to be. More people are getting involved in providing more energy-efficient equipment, basically. And the average is about 6 years in terms of all these products and lighting systems we are putting into buildings. 

Ms. NORTON. This is really the good news from this hearing. The 

investment was substantial before. One might have expected the 

government to make it, but now it seems to me there is nothing 

that the government can do but make it. 

By the way, you have a relationship or are a member of the U.S. 

Green Building Council. Do you get any discount on the costs for 

LEED because of your relationship to U.S. Green Building Council? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. We do not. 

Ms. NORTON. Does anybody? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. I do not think so. I do know, Madam Chair, that 

that organization, because I met with the head of it the other 

night, is expanding rapidly to deal with its demand. And one of the 

concerns I have, the Committee should be aware of, is their capacity to, you know, to handle these 70 projects that we alone have 

in the pipeline. But they are a nonprofit organization, and we are 

not getting a break. I suspect that—— 

Ms. NORTON. If you do enough LEED buildings, if you LEED all 

your buildings, as you now say you will, if ATF is a huge building, 

if DOT, another huge building, then it seems to me—— 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Madam Chair, I would be happy to look at this 

and to meet with them to see. You are absolutely correct, if we 

have got 70 projects—— 

Ms. NORTON. We are about to build the biggest construction 

project in the National Capitol Region since the Pentagon, and the 

biggest ever in this city. And it is not even just one building, it is 

the Department of Homeland Security. That is going to be five or 

six buildings. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Right. 

Ms. NORTON. So it does seem to me that there is something to 

be said there. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. I will meet with them and inquire as to their capacity to give us some equities, because we do have 70 in the pipeline. 

16 

Ms. NORTON. Again, in part, because we are trying to set examples, so we are trying to do it everywhere. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Right. 

Ms. NORTON. And we aren’t on PAYGO here, we don’t want to 

meet that as an issue here, when what we are really trying to pay 

for is the energy efficiency. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Right. 

Ms. NORTON. Perhaps 3 years ago, we opened an annex to a 

courthouse here, Bryant Annex to the Prettyman Courthouse. Is 

that LEED-certified? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Madam Chair, that was not. Again, I suspect— 

but we will get this Committee also—DOT—— 

Ms. NORTON. That is like a whole new building. We can call it 

an annex if we want to, but it is the functional equivalent of an 

entirely new building. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. You are correct. And I suspect, because it is not, 

I suspect that those contracts were signed before 2003. 

Ms. NORTON. Let me ask you this. If one puts an annex on a 

building as part of a building, would that building be separately 

certified LEED? I don’t know it is part of the same heating systems 

and the rest. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Yes, you can. We did it with the Metzenbaum 

Courthouse Annex. So you can in fact get LEED. And a lot of contributions, the energy systems, if the annex has the same HVAC 

system and utility systems within the older portion, upgrades in 

that would in fact perhaps get certified. As well as obviously with 

the Prettyman, you have different, obviously, wall systems, you 

have different insulation than you do in the older courthouse portion. But we did with Metzenbaum, we were able to get LEED certification for an annex addition to an existing older courthouse. 

Ms. NORTON. The gold standard for a developer in this region is 

to get a GSA lease. To what extent are green or energy conservation requirements a part of those RFPs? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Well, we do have, on our leasing action we do 

have requirements for LEED—sorry, energy-rated system and a 

preference for LEED buildings. And one of the things that we are 

concerned about is in fact making sure that there is enough competition and supply in the market for LEED-certified buildings. 

And what we are seeing is more and more of the developers are in 

fact providing and having LEED buildings. 

JBG for one, that did the DOT building. Now all the buildings 

they are doing are LEED buildings in the District and surrounding 

area. We do give preference—— 

Ms. NORTON. You are saying we are seeking. Our resolutions say 

you have to give preference—— 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Right. 

Ms. NORTON. —to energy-efficient buildings. But I have to say I 

am perplexed by you; are talking about supply of leasing in this region? You know well about NoMa and M Street; NoMa, where we 

had some difficulty getting the Federal Government to understand 

that they could get reduced leases there compared with more expensive parts of the city, where the whole part of the District of 

Columbia is being built up; not to mention M Street, which has vacant buildings, brand-new vacant buildings. 

17 

You are talking about—this is the time, it seems to me, to press 

a deal precisely because it is your market. The competition is in 

your hands. Everybody wants to lease. We are in hard times. So 

I don’t understand the competition notion in this market at this 

time. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. I must—I do concur that I think what we are 

hearing from the industry recently, the ULI conference, which basically was a D.C. Development group, that they are all moving to 

offering up green buildings simply to be able to compete for GSA 

leases, as well as D.C. requirements and suburban Maryland. 

We just recently rewrote our sort of standard lease solicitation to 

incorporate many of the features that we have talked about, sustainable design and energy conservation. Some of these clauses are 

looking at and requiring daylight dimming controls, carpet replacement over the life of the lease. It must be recyclable materials. At 

least 50 percent of construction waste must be recycled as well as 

lessors are encouraged to purchase electricity from renewable 

sources if that is possible. So we are incorporating that in our contract, our lease clauses currently. 

Ms. NORTON. Are you taking energy costs into effect in deciding 

the overall cost of the lease as we see energy costs go up? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Yes. Most of our leases are, in fact—— 

Ms. NORTON. You are paying them? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Yes, that is correct. And one of the issues in that 

regard is clearly that any energy improvements within our existing 

lease inventory to be more energy-efficient accrues some values to 

the landlord to the leaselord. 

Ms. NORTON. I am very concerned about the language we have 

allowed in the resolution. You can have two—in fact, you will have 

two, three, four buildings or developers competing, and all of them 

have energy efficiency. Because they are competing today, some 

have upgraded, some—there are existing buildings on one hand, 

new buildings on the other. We have said preference. I wonder how 

you would calculate which of those competing, all of whom will tell 

you they are energy-efficient and will submit information to prove 

it—how you would rate green or energy efficiency as part of the 

RFP in deciding who ought to get that lease. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Well, in terms of the actual requirements, as I 

mentioned, under these new standard lease clauses are actually 

giving best value consideration in that SFO and procurement to 

these features so that anybody—out of three that are qualified, 

there may well be an acknowledgment of a higher standard or better energy efficiency that would have—— 

Ms. NORTON. You see what I am after. Because everybody wants 

your lease, everybody is going to try to meet high energy standards 

if you make them do so. Then when everybody is trying, then I 

don’t know how you are going to decide. I know we do best 

value—— 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Right. 

Ms. NORTON. —because there is no calculation, there is no way 

do this in any kind of strict mathematical fashion. But I am a little 

worried, when we know the worth of the lease to a developer, as 

to how you would, in effect, rate energy efficiency in deciding 

among the many very important factors. There are many very imVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:14 May 04, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\41988 JASON
18 

portant factors. The Committee is well aware of that. And I don’t 

mean to deprecate any of the others, but with energy going up in 

an escalating fashion, no hope of it really coming down in the way 

it once did, it does seem to me one has to look at energy calculations in a very special way and very different from whatever GSA 

may have been doing in the past. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. That is right. It is—the documents, both in terms 

of the construction documents and specification of performance of 

equipment, we do have a very—it is sort of third-party verified. We 

do have a sense of these offerors in terms of what their design 

specs will, in fact, do in terms of energy efficiency, but, you know, 

we do look at total consumption of BTU per square foot, and we 

are using the ASHRAE 90.1 model in that regard. 

So I would say, though, as you well know, from location to past 

performance, all these other factors are a part of that. This is clearly one that I think you are correct in saying the offerors are going 

to be much more attuned to try to be competitive in terms of what 

they are offering in energy performance and sustainable features in 

buildings. I mean, they realize that that is a factor that we, by the 

2007 law, are committed to, and since 2003 are preferred LEED 

construct on these lease construct projects. So it will be coming. 

I think you are correct. I think given all the factors, it is going 

to probably be more important, but not—and it is not going to— 

it is going to be just be as important as it always has been in location and obviously the ability to deal with that agency’s housing 

needs in that location. But we also—— 

Ms. NORTON. I would think the energy part of the RFP needs 

very special, expert inspection. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Yeah, we do have third-party verification. 

Ms. NORTON. It needs it because you are dealing in some ways 

with an unknown. You are certainly dealing with a country that 

doesn’t pay a lot of attention and doesn’t look like it is about to do 

anything radical. And you are dealing with you paying it. It is as 

if we were talking about the Capitol. There is no difference. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Right. 

I will tell you I am concerned. In our own construction projects, 

I think it is a different situation, but I am concerned about these 

goals, about our commitment about the law and requiring it and 

its impact on competition. And we need to—I would commit to this 

Committee, I have talked to our leasing people here, NCR. I think 

we do need to do a much more aggressive outreach to the ULIs, the 

D.C. building industry, the northern Virginia NAIOP, groups like 

that in the NCR that are supplying our spaces under these leased 

actions and are building new buildings to meet our future space 

needs to make sure that they understand what we look at in terms 

of these specifications and performance, and that we make it very 

clear well in advance so that they can—if it is a question of bringing existing buildings up to par in energy rating, that they have 

enough time to do that to continue to be competitive, because the 

last thing we would want to is have requirements that diminish 

our competition, because obviously what we are at is best value. 

Ms. NORTON. I think that is a very good point. The GSA and I 

have had forums before. It may be—I think this is such a matter 

apart from other items in RFP, it is such an unknown, it is so imVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:14 May 04, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\41988 JASON
19 

portant, and your concern with competition is especially important 

to this Subcommittee. We think you are in the catbird seat, of 

course—— 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Yes. Madam Chair—— 

Ms. NORTON. —that I think it would be well worth it if we had 

a conference or a forum—— 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Be happy to do so. 

Ms. NORTON. —on leases—focusing not only on energy, but especially energy, so that people are not caught. If we had a forum 

where you laid out what is far too technical to lay out in this hearing, the kinds of things, kinds of matters particularly involving energy that the government is faced with, then, in fact, we wouldn’t 

be faced with putting RFPs out, people competing and they don’t 

know if they are competing with somebody who really gets it, because they don’t know what ′′getting it′′ means. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Right. 

Ms. NORTON. So I would like to have discussions with you afterwards. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. I would be happy to. 

Ms. NORTON. How can we—beginning with this region, because 

it has so much Federal construction and leasing—but inviting people from other parts of the country to sit in as well to give some 

kind of notice about where the government is headed on requirements when it leases spaces so that people know what they are 

going to have to do. Of course, I am interested in this because I 

think it encourages them to upgrade their own energy efficiency 

and conservation. 

Now, you commission buildings; that is, you invite in third parties after a building is constructed, usually some kind of engineering company. Do you do that routinely? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Yes, we do. In the case of ATF, for example, that 

certification process cannot be totally completed until a full year of 

operation, which we are coming up on. But we have had commissioning. We are looking at those energy systems. 

Interestingly enough, on the lease side of it, which we were just 

talking about, we have mechanical engineering certified energy 

managers, some in house, but also some by contract, who review 

all these lease submittals we were just talking about. So, we do 

have a commissioning process after a building is opened, and we 

do have these both in-house-certified energy reviews and some contractual companies that are doing that for us for the lease submissions that we are getting in terms of—— 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. I just want to make sure 

that process is continuing. 

I asked the Ranking Member if he had any questions. He did not. 

Mr. Dent is here. 

Mr. Dent, do you have any questions or anything you would like 

to say? 

Mr. DENT. No. 

Ms. NORTON. This is focused on the National Capital Region, this 

hearing is, but what we are talking about applies elsewhere. The 

difference between here and elsewhere is the huge footprint. If we 

do it here, it will have a leadership effect elsewhere as well. That 

is why I am particularly concerned about what is happening here. 

20 

I am also—I would also like to know about what may be an even 

greater part of your budget; that is, the renovations that go on. You 

are in the process of a very expensive renovation that seems to go 

on forever of the Old Executive Office Building. Are there any 

green initiatives or conservation initiatives associated with that 

building in particular? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. The EEOB project, as you know, is putting in 

basic new energy systems which will have Energy Star requirements based on the 2010 objectives on the lease side. It is also retrofitting fire and safety. It is also restoring historic properties, but 

we do—HVAC, but it is not LEED—and lighting as well, Madam 

Chair. So both in terms of the lighting, retrofitting and EEOB as 

well as the energy systems, they are Energy Star rated. I do not 

believe—I think that is it, Madam Chair. 

Ms. NORTON. So is it your testimony that when you renovate a 

building, these are Energy Star rated, not simply are you looking 

for LEED in new construction. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. On the renovation side we are focusing on Energy 

Star systems in these new buildings, but if their performance 

would allow for—if it is a substantial remodeling and renovation of 

the energy systems, then we could potentially be submitting that 

for LEEDs. But I don’t know. 

Kevin, do we have many examples of that? 

Mr. KAMPSCHROER. We have two. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. We have two? What are they? 

Mr. KAMPSCHROER. The Duncan Federal Building. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. We do have two examples, the Duncan Building 

and—we will get back to the Committee. 

Ms. NORTON. The Old Executive Office Building, is that an example? 

Ms. NORTON. The Full Committee energy hearing, at that hearing GSA was questioned about energy-inefficient products being on 

a GSA schedule. That seems to be a real nonstarter. Are these inefficient products now removed from the GSA schedule? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. FAS requirement is to sell only at Energy Star 

and FEMP-designated—— 

Ms. NORTON. Are they removed from the schedule? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. I do believe FAS is in the process of ensuring 

that all schedule-offered green products materials, cleaning materials are green products. I do not—I have to get for the record—— 

Ms. NORTON. This is the second hearing when we brought this 

up. We need to know that there may be circumstances, and I forget 

that at the hearing there may have been some described, where the 

only product that could be used is an old systems product. What 

disturbed us was that this was on automatic pilot, thereby encouraging old system use, and we were at cross purposes with one another. 

I would like within 30 days, please submit the products on the 

schedule that are not energy-efficient and indicate why they are 

still on the schedule. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. I will do so. I will be happy to do that. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Because I know FAS has been working on it. I 

will just get you the current status of it. 

21 

Ms. NORTON. Our bill contained an Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings. Is that office operational? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Madam Chair, we are setting it up. We have— 

we are in the process of establishing a budget. Kevin Kampschroer, 

the reason I let him come up here is he is our Acting Director of 

that office. He was the head of our sustainability efforts. 

Ms. NORTON. So it does have a Director? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. Does it have any staff yet? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. We do have staff that we have allocated to it in 

terms of some existing people within the central office of PBS that 

are supporting Kevin in his efforts. We do intend to go to public 

advertising for some of the obviously leadership positions in the 

new green building office. It is well under way now, and I would 

be happy to give you an organizational chart of how we intend to 

staff it out, and what the functions would be, and what both is in 

house and—— 

Ms. NORTON. Would you do that, and would you let us know 

when you intend to have a staff beyond the leader, the staff leader? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Sure. Because I know we are working on that 

with personnel now to staff out that office. 

Ms. NORTON. As I indicated, Mr. Winstead, GSA didn’t begin yesterday to work on energy conservation, except it never had anything like the challenge you have before you today, and there is no 

entity in the construction and leasing market even in the same 

ballgame as GSA. So some Committee is going to put a very special 

burden on GSA here. We are simply using this as the leading edge 

for the rest of the country because this is the place to see what 

works and what doesn’t work because of the footprint of the Federal Government here in almost all aspects of our jurisdiction. 

We are very sympathetic. We tried with you—on the last page 

of your testimony, we tried with you to get public utilities serve as 

long-term public utility service contracts, and this is an example of 

how government doesn’t work, because this is just stupid. We were 

not able to get periods longer than 10 years because of something 

called scoring. I don’t even want to go into scoring, which is counterproductive, but it scores—which is supposed to be like it costs— 

the government money, except that what we are talking about is 

saving the government money. And with such a large user, the 

longer the contract, the better able we are to save money. 

There may be things that the government has to do to safeguard 

its own role in large contracts, energy contracts. We are simply 

classifying a way to correct this because that is where the big savings can occur. We are aware of that. We did make some progress 

here, but we are greatly in sympathy with your difficulty in meeting the goals as long as we are at cross purposes with you right 

here in the way in which we score. 

I thank you very much for this testimony. 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Ms. NORTON. I do want to ask you—I told staff I was concerned 

about an issue. There was a bipartisan letter sent in December 

2007 requesting GSA—this is very important to us, to you, and to 

the Congress—to produce a report on the use of 412 authority. We 

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beth’s in particular. The report was due by the end of January. By 

agency request we extended the deadline to the end of February. 

It is now mid-April, and the report is still not here. You get almost 

weekly e-mails about where is the report. Where is the report, Mr. 

Winstead? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. Madam Chair, the report—I have, in fact, approved the report several weeks ago, and I will make sure that it 

is up here today. 

Ms. NORTON. Will you have the report back to me by the close 

of business today? 

Mr. WINSTEAD. I will. Sorry. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. 

We call the next panel, which are the others witnesses. They are 

George Hawkins, director of the D.C. Department of Environment; 

Joan Kelsch, environmental planner, Department of Environmental 

Services; Doug Siglin, Federal affairs director, Chesapeake Bay 

Foundation; Robert Shovan, Apartment and Office Building Association of Washington; Jim Epstein, Chair, board of directors, D.C. 

Greenworks. 

We will start with Mr. Hawkins, then Ms. Kelsch and then the 

others. 

TESTIMONY OF GEORGE HAWKINS, DIRECTOR, DISTRICT DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA; JOAN KELSCH, ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNER, DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICE, ARLINGTON COUNTY; 

DOUG SIGLIN, FEDERAL AFFAIRS DIRECTOR, CHESAPEAKE 

BAY FOUNDATION; ROBERT SHOVAN, APARTMENT AND OFFICE BUILDING ASSOCIATION OF METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON; AND JIM EPSTEIN, CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, D.C. GREENWORKS 

Mr. HAWKINS. Good morning, Congresswoman Norton, Ranking 

Member Graves, members of the House Subcommittee on Economic 

Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management. My 

name is George Hawkins, and I am the director of the District Department of the Environment for Washington, D.C. I am very 

pleased to have this opportunity to discuss our involvement in efforts to green the National Capital Region. 

Madam Chair, I have also had the pleasure of working at your 

side in the District in the clean-up of the CSX spill along Anacostia, as well as the plans I know you spearheaded for the development at the St. Elizabeth site that you have mentioned in your 

conversation with GSA. So it has been a pleasure to do so. 

We believe that the development of the sustainability plan for 

the District or any city is one of the principal questions of the day. 

Any resident in the city uses less energy than their counterparts 

in the suburbs. They walk more, drive less, and the development 

covers less farms and habitat. Under almost any environmental 

basis, the footprint of a city dweller is smaller than others. 

The question is how to make that sustainable, because at the 

same time a city dweller is often left with residues of development 

and operations from the past on brownfields, there are lead paint 

problems, there’s aging infrastructure, ground-level ozone and less 

access to many natural resources. So there is a challenge on the 

23 

urban side as well. So the imperative of this agenda is to really 

make our cities sustainable. 

We approached our testimony today to answer this question of 

how D.C. is seeking in an energy capacity to set a government in 

operation that is moving in this—in a green direction as a whole, 

so that energy is a piece of a part. We believe success on any of 

these, the whole would be bigger than each of the pieces. 

I will quickly summarize four areas. The first is how we are organizing government, the second is how the laws are set up, the 

third is some of the programs we are running, and the fourth is 

some of the regional efforts we are undertaking. 

First, as far as how we organized government, as you know, 

under Mayor Anthony Williams we elevated the importance of the 

environment by creation of the District Department of the Environment. Most cities do not have a stand-alone environmental department. They are frequently part of the Environmental Health Administration where many environmental issues at the city levels 

have started. 

Since our inception 2 years ago, we have integrated elements of 

the Department of Health, the energy office—our director of the energy office is here, Jack Warner—Department of Public Works, District Water and Sewer Authority. We now have a full-service environmental department in the District, and we have had great support on that score. This does State-level work on regulations, county-level on slough review, as well as city-level work to look at permits and review sites and provide direct services to citizens. 

In combination with setting up this department, Mayor Fenty 

has established the Mayor’s Green Team. We just started in December. We have representatives of 40 agencies, now 80 people, 

meets once a month, and the idea is to coordinate all agencies 

going forth on green operations. This is a whole government effort, 

not just our department. I am pleased to say that we did an initial 

survey of how much green effort is going on in the District, and we 

tabulated 180 existing programs happening across agencies that 

had a green approach. We are delighted by that. So we are organizing our government to move forth. 

Secondly, on the laws, the extensive set of laws in the District 

to support the greening of this city. I will mention just a few. The 

first is probably the most relevant here, which is the Green Building Act of 2006. It requires, incentivizes the development of highperforming buildings, and is one of most foremost laws of its kind 

in the country. It requires LEED certification and Energy Star certification for all new construction for District buildings as of October 1st, 2007. October 1st, 2009, it is publicly financed buildings. 

October 1st, 2011, it is all privately built buildings. So LEED Certification Silver will be the requirement of the day in the District. 

I am happy to say we have many of our friends here on this 

panel. There are more buildings in the pipeline for LEED certification in the District than any other State in the country here in 

the District. Really we have tremendous support from folks right 

here on the panel to work in this direction. 

We also have the Clean Cars Act of 2007, which will require lowemission vehicles standards, the same as used by California. We 

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mit, with U.S. EPA, which has some of the most stringent requirements for new development on stormwater in the United States. 

The Mayor just formed a Green-Collar Jobs Advisory Council. We 

absolutely want to have this rising degree of requirement connect 

into opportunities for our at-risk youth in this city as well as our 

businesses to build a whole new focus of our economy as well as 

the environment. 

Third, give you some sense of some of our specific programs as 

we are greening our District. I will mention our energy office. This 

is a full-service office that provides conservation efforts, including 

renewable energy outreach campaigns, small business assistance, 

appliance rebates, weatherization assistance and energy audits. 

Our low-income assistance of low-income residents has the highest 

penetration rates to low-income families of any district in the country. This office provides a full array of services both to businesses 

and individuals seeking to reduce their energy footprint. 

We also are expanding significantly our effort on stormwater, 

and stormwater and energy requirements are often very much the 

same and are consistent. We have expanded this new permit obligations, which, according to the U.S. EPA, is the most stringent in 

this country. The stormwater requirements in this permit for lowimpact design, for reduced footprint for facilities are very much related to energy as well. 

A third comment I will make on programs is the Anacostia itself. 

I know how near and dear the Anacostia is to you. It is a jewel of 

the District. It is also one of the most polluted water bodies in the 

country. The Mayor has asked us for a specific plan with both long- 

, medium- and short-term actions to restore the Anacostia, which 

will be announced this spring. Elements of these plans are already 

being put in place. We have significant physical restoration projects 

going on in the Watts Branch and Pope Branch as well as cleanups. 

A new set of development standards will be applied along the 

Anacostia that just went into effect this month. We have been 

happy to work with a tremendous array of nonprofits and community organizations in implementing these plans, and D.C. 

Greenworks I know is here today is one of our favorites. 

The last mention on programs is that we also have a significant 

compliance and enforcement effort. We believe that when you set 

a high bar for performance, your first step is to make sure that 

those who are regulated understand and realize what the obligations are. So we take as very important to make sure that our regulations and our requirements are transmitted and communicated 

to those who must comply. 

We will give every opportunity for folks to comply with requirements; however, we are building a strong enforcement program so 

that, if needed, particularly so that the businesses that do comply 

don’t feel that there are others that are getting off, that we will enforce in the District and have initiated some of those actions so far. 

Finally I will mention some of the regional efforts. There have 

been many. We absolutely know that at the District we will not 

succeed in the region unless we work collaboratively with our Federal, our State and our county partners, one of which is right here 

to my right. We are active in a whole slew of partnerships. I will 

25 

mention again just a few: The Anacostia Watershed Restoration 

Partnership, which is coordinated by COG. And Dana Minerva is 

here today vetting the Anacostia partnership. That partnership is 

D.C., State of Maryland, Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties, U.S. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers. 

We are also involved in the Interstate Commission for the Potomac River, and have signed the Chesapeake 2000 agreement to try 

to improve as well, although we are not reaching all of those goals 

as we had hoped, but still working very hard at it. 

Finally, the District takes very significantly the effort to reduce 

climate change. Cities may by the place where we see some of the 

consequence first. Most cities were located at the confluence of rivers or on waterways where rising sea level is likely to have the 

most significant first effect of climate change. Mayor Fenty has 

signed the Climate Protection Agreement. We have joined ICLEI’s 

Cities for Climate Protection campaign. We have signed on the Climate Registry to calculate the city’s carbon footprint, and we will 

be shortly announcing an effort to develop a climate change action 

strategy. We want to know the facts about carbon footprint as we 

take the next step into strategy itself. 

I am also happy to say there has been a combined effort of the 

Green Building Advisory Committee, something established under 

the Green Building Act, to green the building codes in a proposal 

that was unanimously supported by that advisory committee, 

which has representatives from a wide range of interested parties, 

that will turn the rules of the game, the building code rules in the 

District, green, we believe, this spring. So this full set of initiatives—and we have a slew of partnerships. 

I know I have run a few minutes too long. 

There is tremendous commitment on behalf of the District to 

make sure our government is organized to produce green, that we 

have a legal set of rules to establish green as the practice, that we 

work in all of our programs in partnership with our many friends 

and allies to implement and also expand in our region to do as 

well. I thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. 

Ms. Kelsch. 

Ms. KELSCH. Good morning, Gentlewoman Norton, Ranking 

Member Graves. Thank you very much for having me here today. 

My name is Joan Kelsch. I am an environmental planner for Arlington County, Virginia, where I coordinate the county’s green 

building initiatives. I am a LEED-accredited professional, and I 

also serve as the Chair of the Intergovernmental Green Building 

Group at the Washington Council of Governments. 

I appreciate the opportunity to present to you today Arlington’s 

green building programs as well as the work being done to address 

green buildings regionally. 

Arlington is an urban community, and because of the continued 

interest in development in Arlington, the county is working to 

make its building stock as sustainable as possible. For the past 10 

years, Arlington has used the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED 

Green Building Rating System to guide both public and private development in the county with the intent of reducing environmental 

impact in all new construction. Arlington originally focused our 

26 

green building efforts on public facilities, and we now have three 

LEED Silver-certified public buildings in the county. 

Private, commercial and high-rise development in the county also 

must incorporate green building components. Many developers are 

now choosing to officially become LEED-certified because certifying 

their projects makes both environmental and economic sense for 

them. 

Arlington’s Green Building density incentive program has encouraged more than a dozen projects to apply for LEED certification in the county. 

In 2007, Arlington launched its Climate Protection Program 

called Arlington’s Initiative to Reduce Emissions, which is also 

known as Fresh AIRE. Existing buildings are responsible for about 

two-thirds of the county’s carbon emissions, and as such, county 

staff has developed programs to encourage existing building owners 

to improve energy efficiency through building retrofits and operational changes using EPA’s Energy Star benchmarking program. 

In addition to Arlington, several jurisdictions in the region have 

developed green building programs and are making continuous 

progress in the region. As Mr. Hawkins noted, D.C. has made some 

great strides including their Green Building Act. Montgomery 

County, Maryland, has also adopted green building legislation that 

addresses both public and private construction. In Fairfax, they 

have adopted policies that would green up growth centers such as 

Tysons Corner. And several jurisdictions in Maryland and Virginia 

require public facilities to achieve LEED certification so they are 

leading by example, and building codes are being addressed in several jurisdictions. 

Several communities in the D.C. area also offer incentives such 

as expedited permitting or reduced permit fees for buildings that 

go green. 

Through the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, 

local governments in the D.C. region have joined forces to share information and develop a common set of goals for local government 

green building programs. 

COG issued a report that examines the building issues facing our 

region and offers specific recommendations to local governments for 

developing regionally consistent green building programs for public 

and private development. Specifically, the report recommends that, 

one, local governments adopt LEED as the common green building 

rating system for the region, thus offering consistency across the 

region so all building professionals know to expect the same standards. 

Two, local governments should lead by example by designing and 

constructing public facilities to the LEED Silver standard. 

Three, jurisdictions should establish green building programs for 

private development that focus specifically on the environmental 

issues of particular importance to the D.C. region, including energy 

efficiency and on-site power generation, heat island mitigation, 

stormwater management and construction debris recycling. 

Finally local governments will coordinate in the region on education and outreach efforts so that we can optimize some of the innovation that is going on. 

27 

Greening our Nation’s building stock offers one of the greatest 

opportunities to protect the environment and enhance energy independence. Nationally buildings generate one-third of the Nation’s 

carbon emissions, primarily through the use of electricity and natural gas. Despite rapid growth and the widespread acceptance of 

green building, only a small fraction of new home and commercial 

construction incorporates green components at this time. Additional leadership and action is needed to spread the word about 

sustainable building practices. 

The Federal Government can encourage green building practices 

through programs such as your Green the Capitol Initiative. Providing green building and energy efficiency tax credits would help 

encourage the private sector to adopt some of these green building 

components. Fully funding the Energy Efficiency and Construction 

Block Grant Program would support critical efforts at the local and 

State levels to further some of these goals. 

Additionally, the Federal Government can play an important role 

in green building success by supporting EPA’s Energy Star 

benchmarking system. 

Finally, there is a critical need for additional research funding to 

develop and test new green building materials. 

Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Graves, Arlington County and the Council of Governments applaud your leadership in convening this hearing, and I thank you again for the opportunity to 

testify today. Those of us working in local government are very encouraged by the increased focus of attention on these particular 

issues, and we look forward to being your partners and moving forward. Thank you again. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you. 

Mr. Epstein. 

Mr. EPSTEIN. Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Jim Epstein. I am the chairman of D.C. Greenworks, a 501(c)(3) social and 

environmental enterprise organization whose focus is on every aspect of green roofs in the National Capital Region. We design and 

install, provide job training, provide technical assistance, educate 

the public, research the efficacy and benefit, and help create effective public policy regarding green roofs’ roles in mitigating 

stormwater run-off. 

In North America, the green roof movement already has enthusiastic support in Chicago, Portland, Toronto, Vancouver and New 

York, and an extensive history in Europe. Washington, D.C., as you 

heard from Mr. Hawkins, has made a commitment to join these cities as a leader in the green roof movement. 

It is an honor and pleasure to have the opportunity to speak 

about the role green roofs have in greening Washington and the 

National Capital Region. In 2007, D.C. Greenworks worked with 

the District to install 12,000 square feet of green roofs in the 

Reeves Building and on One Judiciary Square, in addition to several commercial installations. So we completed $270,000 in greenroof installations and facilitated green-collar jobs, job training for 

16 individuals. 

There are many exciting projects in store for 2008 and into the 

future as we plan to double these numbers and administer a 

$200,000 grant awarded by the District of Columbia’s Department 

28 

of the Environment for green-roof installation targeted at creating 

public awareness and facilitating research. 

Green roofs offer many tangible benefits. I would like to highlight a few that would be of most interest to this Committee. Particularly during heavy rains, the combined sewer overflow system 

does not have the capacity to handle the influx, and much of the 

water that carries pollutants from our urban environment flow directly into the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. Even basic green 

roofs hold about the first inch of rain and filter in cooler water that 

does run off. 

Green roofs act as additional insulation on the buildings; also 

cooling agents as they reduce heat absorption. Quantifiable research in the United States, however, is limited, and the results 

will vary based on climate, but preliminary results from studies 

taken at the headquarters of the American Society of Landscape 

Architects here in Washington, D.C., have shown a 15 to 20 percent reduction in heating and cooling costs since the installation of 

their green roof. 

A recent study performed in Germany showed that the cooling effect of green roofs increased photovoltaic efficiency significantly. 

Using green roofs and solar panels together could therefore decrease electricity demands and increase electricity production. 

According to the green build-out model developed by K.C. Trees 

and Linotech, which should be a central reading for this Committee, and highlights of which are included in my written testimony, 260 million square feet of the District currently covered by 

buildings. About 195 million square feet of those buildings, that is 

about 75 percent of the total number of buildings, are capable of 

accommodating a green roof. So it is a significant number of buildings in the District of Columbia that could hold a green roof. That 

means between 10- and 13 million square feet of rooftop are replaced every single year in the District of Columbia alone. If 50 

percent of the roof surface were replaced with green roofs, within 

25 years, which is about the time that it takes to replace every single roof, stormwater discharges would be reduced by 882 million 

gallons annually. 

The most effective incentives for green roof installation so far in 

the District appear to be on-site stormwater management regulation for new construction, which, as you heard, is already implemented to a large degree; both mandates and market-driven incentives for achieving LEED certification, again well underway; and 

direct subsidy programs and grants. The District of Columbia 

Water and Sewer Authority has recommended and is currently researching fee basis—a basis for impervious service charge to start 

accounting for the costs in natural capital of stormwater run-off. 

Germany is the global leader in green roofing, with some municipal areas reporting 30 to 40 percent of all roofs to be green roofs. 

Their incentives include a mix of mandates, direct subsidies and 

tax credits. Other American cities are using a combination of these 

three approaches. 

Federal facilities make up approximately 8-1/2 million square 

feet of the impervious footprint in the District of Columbia. If that 

same 75 percent proportion were applied, that would mean that 

29 

there would be 6.3 million square feet of green-roof-ready Federal 

buildings. 

There is still a tremendous need for research into measurable 

benefits of green roofs in the National Capital Region. The Federal 

Government is perfectly positioned to support such research with 

assets that have expansive green roofs and mirror-image wings, 

which could be extremely useful in comparative studies. 

More Federal subsidies for municipal projects are desperately 

needed. Funding for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, 

Chesapeake Bay Foundation and other providers of direct grants, 

and direct tax subsidies, especially for residents and other projects 

that do not fall under the stormwater and/or LEED mandates, 

could act as a catalyst to the growth of this movement in areas not 

covered by more widespread legislative acts which generally focus 

on new buildings. 

Additionally, providing green-collar job training on these installations through groups such as Earth Conservation Corps and 

AmeriCorps could provide job growth in categories cited by the Environmental Protection Agency as lacking the skilled workers needed for industry-growth and cost-reduction strategies. 

By managing rainfall where it lands through the use of green 

roofs, and on a significant scale, we can take the first and most important steps to cleaning up our rivers, transforming our cities and 

increasing the quality of life for citizens in the National Capital Region. Green roof installations in Federal buildings would demonstrate the Federal Government’s commitment to greening the 

National Capital Region and pursuing energy security for the Nation as a whole. 

I thank you for your valuable time and welcome your questions. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Epstein. 

Mr. Shovan. 

Mr. SHOVAN. Thank you. 

Good morning, Chairperson Norton, Ranking Member Graves 

and members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for holding this important hearing on green buildings and inviting me to testify today. 

I am Robert Shovan, senior property manager and senior vice 

president of Transwestern. I am also a LEED-accredited professional. I am here today on behalf of the Building Owners and Managers Association, International, or BOMA International, and its 

Washington, D.C., affiliate, the Apartment and Office Building Association, or AOBA. 

Transwestern is a privately held national commercial real estate 

firm focused on creating value for our clients in each market that 

we serve. Transwestern is proud to say that we fully embrace our 

sustainability concepts and our property facility management services. We constantly strive to improve the quality of the buildings 

we manage for the good of our clients, our tenants, our environment and asset value. 

Over the last several years, Transwestern has found the shift to 

green or sustainable buildings is as good for business as it is for 

the environment. In our present economy construction costs continue to rise. Our operating costs, such as energy tax and payroll, 

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30 

pensate for these rising costs. We simply need to find other ways 

to lower the operating costs. 

Lowering energy consumption is an obvious way to start. But energy is only one component of green or high-performance buildings, 

and many other elements of a sustainably managed property are 

cost-neutral. For example, there is minimal cost to change policy, 

procedures or products on how to manage a building. It is also costneutral to fully implement recycling and to implement green cleaning programs that include training janitorial employees and switching to low-VOC-emitting cleaning products. Other components of 

green building operations include implementing environmentally 

friendly pest management programs and improving the building’s 

air quality. 

Because we believe in the value to our tenants, to the environment and our clients, Transwestern has committed 51 buildings totaling 17 million square feet to the U.S. Green Building Council’s 

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Existing Building 

Portfolio Pilot. Transwestern’s own corporate office in Chicago is 

LEED-certified. 

We are proud to note that we recently won the EPA Energy Star 

Sustained Excellence Award for the third consecutive year. 

Transwestern has been involved with Energy Star programs since 

1999. Here in Washington, Transwestern is not alone in our adoption of energy-efficient, sustainable management practices. Many 

real estate firms with properties in the region are participating in 

a broad and growing range of green initiatives independent, I may 

add, of statutory mandates to do so. We have provided an exhibit 

which contains a summary of a few of them. 

However despite the presence of numerous cranes across the skyline, Washington, D.C., is largely a built environment, and there is 

an important role for management teams of existing buildings to 

find ways to increase efficiency and sustainability in our portfolios. 

Property management professionals recognize the critical significance of energy conservation to contain costs and reduce environmental impacts, but it is also essential that elected officials and the 

public understand that realizing energy efficiency and sustainability gains in existing buildings presents an array of consideration and variables quite different from those involved in new construction. 

For instance, I may be very persuaded of the merits of a green 

roof for an existing building, but there may be structural factors 

that render it impractical, or it could be the current roof is only 4 

years into its useful life, and thus simply too new to justify its reconstruction. Storm or graywater capture and reuse techniques are 

increasingly being designed into new buildings, but as desirable as 

they may be, adopting them into an existing structure will often be 

impossible. 

Similarly, the operating cost savings for more energy-efficient elevator technology may be demonstrable, but what about the capital 

costs of replacing 16 very functional elevators in my building? Will 

the owners and tenants be persuaded of the value of doing so and 

enduring the associated disruption? Will the answer be different if 

it is coming from GSA, which leases roughly one-third of the privately owned office space in Washington? 

31 

I must mention, too, for AOBA’s housing providers that regulatory programs such as rent control and historic preservation can 

often constrain the ability to undertake proven energy-reduction 

measures like window replacements or individual utility metering. 

These are some of the realities involved in undertaking green initiatives in a largely built environment. There is a growing interest 

and commitment to doing so. Increasingly it is a matter of when, 

not if; and how, rather than why. To that end AOBA is undertaking a number of initiatives to assist its members. This month 

it launched a new Energy Managers Roundtable to share best practices. AOBA is building a Going Green Web site specifically focused 

on existing buildings, which will include case studies, helpful resources and a comprehensive outline of all green-related local laws, 

regulations and incentive programs. In September AOBA will hold 

a green conference that will address the unique issues associated 

with the greening of existing multifamily and commercial office 

buildings. 

AOBA is also one of the most recent BOMA affiliates to officially 

sign on to BOMA International’s 7-Point Challenge, which has been 

voluntarily endorsed by many of the largest companies that own 

and operate buildings in the United States and is perhaps the best 

illustration nationally of the private sector’s moving towards energy efficiency. 

In the fall of 2007, BOMA International called on its member 

companies to take a proactive and aggressive step to lower energy 

consumption across their portfolios by 30 percent by 2012. To date 

over 30 companies have accepted the challenge. These companies 

include well-known names as Transwestern, CB Richard Ellis, 

Cushman & Wakefield, USAA Real Estate and RREEF, to name a 

few. 

BOMA has also partnered with the Clinton Climate Institute to 

help bring many benefits of their Existing Building Retrofit Program to the private sector office buildings. 

BOMA International strongly believes that energy efficiency and 

carbon reduction efforts are well under way in this commercial office building industry. Voluntary efforts and programs such as the 

EPA Energy Star program and the Clinton Climate Initiative are 

bringing tools to our members to assist them in their efforts. We 

look to Congress to continue to encourage this type of action and 

refrain from implementing unneeded and costly mandates. 

We thank the Subcommittee for holding this important hearing 

and look forward to working with Congress and other public- and 

private-sector partners to achieve our mutual goal of market transformation. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Shovan. 

Mr. Siglin. 

Mr. SIGLIN. Congresswoman, it is good to be back. Mr. Graves. 

I am Doug Siglin, I am the Federal affairs director for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. I am going to try to set a context for much 

of the stuff you have heard. 

I will say before we do that, we have some bona fides in this 

business. We chose 10 years ago to build what became the world’s 

first Platinum LEED green building at our headquarters in Annapolis. I understand now there are a handful of Platinum buildings 

32 

in the world, but we were the very first, and it is still a tremendously amazing building on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay, and 

I would invite any of you to take a look if you are interested. 

Secondly, I want to say I personally made the decision to go raise 

money and donate the green roof to the Nationals stadium so that 

the hundreds of thousands of people or millions of people who will 

come to Nationals baseball games would have an opportunity to see 

what a green roof looks like in practice. 

The reason what you heard today is important is because the waterways of the National Capital Region and waterways of our entire region, in fact, continue to be very highly degraded. Ms. Norton, you know because of your long experience with this about the 

Anacostia. We call it one of the country’s dirtiest rivers. It is officially listed as impaired for sediment, nutrients, bacteria, toxic 

chemicals and trash. This is the river that runs something like 

2,000 yards from Capitol Hill, and every time one of the facilities 

flushes in this complex in a rainstorm, some part of it ends up in 

the Anacostia. 

In a bigger sense, we, as part of an ecological region, the Chesapeake Bay watershed, have a responsibility to make sure that the 

Chesapeake Bay is a clean and healthy, productive waterway for 

our children and grandchildren. These efforts you have heard about 

this morning, the green building, the stormwater management— 

that, in fact, is an engineer’s term for urban run-off, agricultural 

run-off—are the solution. These are the kinds of things that will 

have to be done on a very, very wide scale if, in fact, we are going 

to quit reading the horror stories about the Chesapeake Bay. 

Stormwater run-off carrying a load of nitrogen is the principal pollutant to the Chesapeake Bay, and the way we address those 

things is to make sure that our built infrastructure filters out rather than funnels to those pollutants down to the Bay. 

If you read this morning’s Post, there is yet another editorial 

about how bad a shape the bay is in. This one had to do with Governor O’Malley and Governor Kaine meeting this week to tell the 

watermen that they couldn’t fish as many crabs anymore. The reason for that is because—in great part because there is too much nitrogen in the bay. The reason there is too much nitrogen in the bay 

is in great part because there is too much nitrogen in our lives that 

runs off into the Chesapeake Bay. 

The kind of stormwater management techniques that we have 

been hearing about this morning, including green roofs, including 

green buildings in general, including the efficient energy use, are, 

in fact, the techniques. If you take a look at the bay, you are going 

to see that now it has a huge dead zone, like the Gulf of Mexico. 

In fact, the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is larger than several 

States, several individual States. The area of the dead zone in the 

Gulf of Mexico is larger than some of our smaller States. The area 

of dead zone in the Chesapeake Bay is not quite that big, but it 

is very significant. 

A dead zone is a place where there is too little dissolved oxygen 

for fish and shellfish to live. The reason there is too little dissolved 

oxygen is because there is too much nitrogen, and we go back into 

the circle again. 

33 

If we are going to approach solving those dead zones so we can 

get back the crabs, we can get back the oysters, we can get back 

all the resources that are in the Chesapeake Bay, these kinds of 

techniques are tremendously important. 

I am not going to go through a litany of all the things that have 

been done in the Capital region. I have it in my written statement, 

but you have heard it here today. 

I want to make two points in closing. Number one, we are seeing 

a tremendous amount of activity with buildings, and that is all to 

the good. We need to have the same kind of level of activity with 

our highways. The highways is the next big frontier. There are 

things going on now. We are at the very beginning stages of trying 

to figure out how to green up our highways. I am the chairman of 

the board of an organization called the Low Impact Development 

Center. The Low Impact Development Center is part of a national 

program called Green Highways. As you move to the surface transportation bill, Congresswoman, I think this has gotten to be a 

theme, that we are going to have to figure out how to green up 

highways. 

The last point I want to make, because I am just about out of 

time, is that I am a great baseball fan. It is one of the reasons I 

wanted to make sure that green roof was down at the Nationals 

stadium. Last night the Nationals scored two runs, but they lost 

the game. We are scoring a lot of runs in this region with all the 

things you have heard about this morning, but so far, as regards 

the Chesapeake Bay, we are still losing the game. These kinds of 

efforts have to be multiplied over and over and over again in the 

National Capital Region and throughout the entire Chesapeake 

Bay, and I would venture to say throughout the Nation. Anything 

that this Committee can do to make sure that these kinds of things 

are, in fact, replicated so that our waterways become clean again 

for our children and grandchildren would be highly appreciated. 

Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, thank you Mr. Siglin. 

I want to thank all of you for your work. We have asked you to 

come, and I have asked that you sit at the same table instead of 

dividing people up, officials and private, because I would like to 

have a conversation. We are really learning. 

First let me say that we asked you to come because you represent the array of entities of various kinds who are trying to lead 

in this very, very challenging effort, and we think that your own 

efforts, and particularly the cross-talk we hope to elicit, could help 

the Subcommittee as we try to see what is the next step for the 

Big Kahuna here who can make a difference in almost every way 

and is going to try. 

Let us start with baseball, Mr. Siglin, you and Mr. Hawkins. 

Mr. Hawkins, do you know what the District has done first under 

Mayor Williams, now Mayor Fenty, is pretty impressive for a local 

jurisdiction starting up in this area. I must say, Mr. Hawkins, 

since we have State responsibilities, it is perfectly appropriate for 

us as a city to have a State agency, and other cities would not find 

that necessary. And I congratulate the District on moving this 

issue. They were pressed, frankly, in moving it to this level. 

34 

Ms. NORTON. We have heard testimony here that there is a 

Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Now, the reason we have a Chesapeake Bay Foundation, we are blessed with waterways. Well, the 

Anacostia flows into some things, and the Potomac flows into some 

things, and the tributary flows into some things, but they all end 

up in one of the great wonders of the United States. 

And yes, Mr. Siglin, it makes you want to cry. Of course, if you 

are a native Washingtonian you know about the crabs; there goes 

the one thing this city and region are known for. And colossal, colossal reduction in just the take, much less the quality of what has 

been there forever. 

Now, Mr. Siglin said, here is the Chesapeake Bay Foundation— 

a private organization, all right—went out to raise money not for 

what, its own work, but for what it knew would bring terrible harm 

to another entity on the banks of Anacostia and to get a green roof, 

for such roof as you need over a stadium. 

The reason for that, Mr. Hawkins, is that there was a huge fight 

before our current mayor became mayor as to whether or not there 

ought to be a stadium at all. And I suspect that the reason that 

there would have been no green roof, particularly since the District 

was paying for it, was that the council had put a cap on the 

amount of money that the city could spend, because the city objected strongly to having to build a baseball stadium in the first 

place. 

So my question here today is, is the stadium a factor, today in 

polluting the Anacostia? And what steps beyond the green roof 

have been taken by the District to keep it from being more of a factor in what many of us are trying do with the Anacostia? 

First, let me ask Mr. Siglin, who perhaps would know best. 

Would you say, with your green roof, is the stadium a significant 

factor, I should say, in continuing pollution of the Anacostia? 

Mr. SIGLIN. Congresswoman, the green roof is relatively insignificant. To tell you the truth, it is a demonstration roof. And the importance of the green roof at the stadium, for the most part, is the 

sign that goes along with it that tells the people walking by that 

it is, in fact, one of the techniques that can be used in an urban 

area to—— 

Ms. NORTON. So it is having—you wished it to have the kind of 

effect that in my questions to Mr. Winstead about whether or not 

the Department of Transportation or the Department of the ATF 

had a green roof and whether they are willing to spend the money 

to get a LEED roof—or excuse me, a LEED certification—you are 

trying to have that same effect? 

Mr. SIGLIN. I was trying to achieve the goal of having the two 

million people that are going to come to the Nationals Park in a 

good season have some idea about that small green roof. 

Now I would—— 

Ms. NORTON. Do they know about that, by the way? Is there any 

way to know about that? 

Mr. SIGLIN. The people who come? Is that what you are asking? 

Ms. NORTON. Yeah. How do they know? 

Mr. SIGLIN. There is a sign that I am told just went up yesterday 

before the Pope’s visit that explains what it is, and it should be 

35 

easily visible. I haven’t seen it myself yet, but I am told that it is 

now up. 

But—I do want to say for the record, though, that the larger 

green roofs that Mr. Winstead was talking about do, in fact, have 

a very significant effect on water quality. The one at the Nationals’ 

stadium, because the stadium is an open environment, turns out to 

be relatively small and not that significant. What is significant 

about the stadium, however, is that from the very beginning members of the environmental community here, including myself, sat 

down with the architects and the designers of the stadium—and 

there were lots of meetings, and some involved Mayor Williams— 

and there were dozens and dozens of meetings, and the stadium 

has built into it some extraordinary water management systems. In 

fact, it has four different water management systems for different 

reasons, different parts of the stadium. 

And I haven’t seen any of the testing data since the stadium 

opened, but I can tell you that the stadium was designed in such 

a way that it is supposed to put clean water back in the Anacostia. 

And that is a great thing; that is a—— 

Ms. NORTON. That is a terrific thing. And let’s get Mr. Hawkins 

to raise his right hand and tell us whether or not that, in fact, is 

occurring. 

Have all steps—given the fact that you, I, and now I am going 

to say every jurisdiction in the region have been working on Anacostia issues, has the District done all it can, have the owners of 

the stadium done all they can to keep further pollution in the Anacostia from resulting from the new stadium, which is built on the 

Anacostia? 

Mr. HAWKINS. I would try to answer that question in three 

phases. 

First, I would agree there has been a tremendous partnership 

with members of the nonprofit and the private sectors to make the 

stadium the first LEED-certified stadium in the country, which is 

very impressive. 

The question of whether or not this stadium and its associated 

areas, like the parking lots, have no effect on the Anacostia, I don’t 

think that is something that we would state or claim, particularly 

in the heaviest rainstorms. Many of the systems that we have in 

place in the very biggest of the rain events, there will still be runoff coming from this area. 

Ms. NORTON. Wait a minute. Mr. Siglin said that the water, the 

impression I got from your testimony is that the water that does 

come from the stadium—the runoff, I understand, but let’s put that 

aside a minute—— 

Mr. SIGLIN. I think Mr. Hawkins’ point is, surrounding the stadium there is a certain amount of surface parking. And the runoff 

from the surface parking outside the stadium will probably have an 

effect. 

Ms. NORTON. Of course, that is controllable. 

Mr. HAWKINS. Each of the parking lots we reviewed, and bioretention systems were built into the parking lots. 

Is there zero effect of the development of the stadium on the 

Anacostia? The answer would be ′′no.′′ There will be some. 

36 

Ms. NORTON. I don’t understand. I must say, since it is a new 

stadium, since it is LEED-certified, since Mr. Siglin’s testimony is, 

they went to great lengths within the stadium, I don’t understand 

if it is basically from parking areas. 

Why can’t it be controlled and have virtually no effect on—I am 

talking about only the stadium now. There is all kinds of land that 

you don’t control. 

Mr. SIGLIN. We should be able to do that, Congresswoman. 

I am not sure the systems are in place on the parking lots. 

Frankly, they were put in place the week before the stadium 

opened. I am not sure that—— 

Ms. NORTON. But they were planned long before. They knew 

there was going to be a parking lot, it would hold only X number 

of cars. And so I am sure with all the work that was done—and 

you said that they do catch runoff. 

So I am just trying to find out from this, just built in a climatechange environment, whether or not there is any from it. Because 

even if it doesn’t—all kinds of places—so it will probably have an 

insignificant effect. 

I am just trying to find where the effects from the Anacostia— 

from the stadium would come from. 

Mr. Hawkins? 

Mr. HAWKINS. What I would add to that is—here is how I look 

at it. 

I don’t think there is any development—it is very hard to say 

there is zero consequence, no matter how well a development is 

done, to a nearby piece of ecology. The question in part is, what 

was there before. 

What is remarkable, there was development all along the Anacostia, some of which was parking lots and auto repair facilities 

that have been replaced by this development. You could—what is 

definitely true is that the current status of the Anacostia is better 

off with this new development and the new stadium than it was 

under the prior land use regime. 

Ms. NORTON. Everybody shakes their head and says—I don’t. A 

lot of that was vacant land. A lot of that, nothing was happening 

on it. 

I mean, Mr. Epstein’s testimony was interesting—when you 

talked about something that I am going to have a provision for, try 

to get into the appropriations this period—and that is, if we don’t 

start measuring this stuff, we will be rightly accused of not knowing what we are talking about. I don’t know. 

And it seems that the Federal Government—what I am going to 

do is seek an appropriation provision that would have Federal 

money measure some of this. Because we are the biggest, we have 

the most to gain, I don’t think you are the ones that should do it. 

I certainly don’t think anybody else has the money to do it nor the 

incentive that we have to do it. 

But if everybody, when it builds says, my parking lots are good, 

my water is being recycled, I don’t accept—absolutely don’t, Mr. 

Siglin—that it is better than it was before. I really don’t. There is 

construction that went on. 

I am a native Washingtonian. There is a notion of progressivism, 

that progress always happens if you are in America. Not true. We 

37 

now know the climate is going to hell; we might be going right 

along with it. 

There was a bunch of land on which nothing much was happening. Private developers weren’t developing on it; they were 

waiting to see if we were going to develop on it. My own project, 

the Southeast Federal Center, was a disgrace until we have gotten 

it now moving, with the first building going up. But, hey, nothing 

was happening. 

So I can’t say that because the Southeast Federal Center is going 

up now, the Anacostia is better off than when nothing was happening. What I did do was get the Southeast Federal Center 

cleaned up before we proceeded. 

But I am making no assumptions. I think skepticism—this is the 

academic in me—is do everything we do, particularly everything 

that is new. 

The Ranking Member, you know, complains about—I think he 

was within his rights to bring doubts to the table on some of what 

we are doing here. So I don’t accept that because there is a brandnew stadium, hey, the Anacostia has got to be better off than when 

nothing was happening and nothing was flowing into it. I think we 

have got to measure it. 

I am not asking this question for you; I am telling you—I hope 

my staff is listening—I am going to put a provision in to begin to 

measure not what the Nationals are doing. 

But, frankly, it has a lot to do with your testimony, Mr. Epstein, 

which I thought was very candid, very important. You talked about 

the fact that you cited what was measurable. And then you said 

that there were no true ways to measure what we are doing in 

green roofs and the like. 

And I pulled out your testimony. You spoke about a 15 to—here 

it is: Effect of promoting green roofing generally adds $10 to $20 

per square foot to the cost of a roof, which is not insubstantial. Is 

that the cost of a building or a home? 

Mr. EPSTEIN. It is the energy reduction that comes from—— 

Ms. NORTON. Period? 

Mr. EPSTEIN. Yes. That particular piece of information is in relation to the energy savings that the insulating factor of a green roof 

provides. 

Ms. NORTON. So it adds $15 to $20 per square foot to the cost 

of the roof now? 

Mr. EPSTEIN. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. What everybody wants to know is what we elicited 

in part from our questioning of Mr. Winstead: Okay, when do we 

get our money back? And he was talking about recoup times that 

were very impressive, 3 to 5 years, for example, which I think, 

given the life of a roof of about 25 years, as you indicate in your 

testimony, might be well worth it. 

Have these figures been documented? 

Mr. EPSTEIN. They are documented, but they are not—the information is very regional. In other words, you know, studies that we 

get from Germany or from California are very hard to apply locally. 

So it is really important that we do these kinds of things locally. 

But the information is generally understood. 

38 

Ms. NORTON. You say in your testimony that Germany is reporting 30 to 40 percent. But I am looking for some indication that the 

return is substantial on green roofing; especially since we are a 

built city, as Mr. Shovan said, and in this city most of what we are 

going to do is encourage people to do what is already—only the 

Federal Government can build substantially, or a developer, one 

here and one there. 

Mr. EPSTEIN. I can’t say that there is a direct monetary—a significant monetary payback improvement at this point. 

Again, we would love to do some more studies on it. 

I think the important thing that Mr. Siglin points to is the extraordinary cost to the Chesapeake Bay. And that really is—really 

part of the factor that we have to consider as we look to—— 

Ms. NORTON. If you want to get practical about it, there goes the 

crab catch. Yeah, you say tremendous need for research, measurable effects in the National Capital Region, and that the Federal 

Government is perfectly positioned to do that research. 

Mr. Siglin, your response to that question? 

Mr. SIGLIN. Congresswoman, I just wanted to say this for the 

record: In 2003, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation created a Green 

Roof Incentive Grant Program in conjunction with District of Columbia WASA and the D.C. Department of the Environment; and 

in that program we offered private commercial entities about 20 

percent of the additional cost of a green roof. 

So we offered that we would pay about 20 percent for their additional costs in putting a green roof on the building. We found great 

interest in that. 

And that incentive grant program has ended now; our program 

has ended. But we have been encouraging the District government 

and other governmental units to pick up that concept, because if 

a unit of government would pick up the concept of providing an incentive grant for about 20 percent of the incremental cost, the private building owner then picks up 80 percent of the cost, thereby 

achieving a public value, which is to stop or slow down the pollution that proceeds from that green roof for only $5—for 20 percent 

of the cost. 

So the point I am trying to make, Congresswoman, is if, in fact, 

we could take an incentive approach to this we could choose to 

achieve a public value for 20 cents on the dollar. 

Ms. NORTON. And that is something that interests me in light of 

our jurisdiction over GSA. 

Mr. Shovan and—particularly, Mr. Shovan and Mr. Epstein; I 

think Mr. Epstein testified that some combination of photovoltaic 

and green roofs is sometimes more effective. 

I indicated in my testimony—or excuse me, in my opening statement—that they tried the notion, asked for a study. The whole 

study isn’t done yet, but when we had our hearing on the new Capitol complex and on the Capitol itself, we were told that the Rayburn Building could not—was not appropriate for a photovoltaic. 

See, we don’t know from here what kind of energy efficiency we 

are at, so we want what looks to us to have done some good. My 

question to you goes to the use of green roofs or photovoltaics in 

built environments such as we are dealing with here. 

39 

Ms. Kelsch, your jurisdiction is like the District—we were part 

of Arlington—one of the oldest in the country as well, many built, 

many already-built entities. Is there the capacity to work with already-built buildings so that there would be an incentive for the industry or for somebody—whoever is becoming expert in this—to, in 

fact, put a green roof on; and for the organization or the government agency to feel that it was worth while to go to this technology 

or to go to greening of this kind for already-built entities? 

Ms. KELSCH. I will take a shot at that. 

Ms. NORTON. Should this be done? Should we be encouraging, 

are we encouraging, because we believe that there is enough savings in energy and enough savings in costs; and it comes back 

quickly enough to encourage green roofs of various kinds, given the 

age of some of these buildings? 

Some are huge, some are small, some were never meant—just let 

me elaborate on what my thinking is—some were never meant to 

hold hardly anything on them. They age. And we are not talking 

about what Mr. Shovan had in his testimony. 

There may be practical reasons, too old, to new, whatever. I am 

talking about a built building, not too old, not too new, the owner 

doesn’t know what to do. 

Can we say at this moment in time that this is what people who 

own buildings or structures that have already been built should explore as a way to deal with runoff and to conserve energy? 

Ms. KELSCH. I would say that green roofs are definitely a technology that are worth exploring. I think at this point they are a 

little bit more—they are more expensive than just replacing your 

roof. So if the building is structurally sound and can support a 

green roof, if there were incentives for building owners to put a 

green roof—to replace an existing roof that needed to be replaced 

with a green roof, I think that would move the market forward. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, Ms. Kelsch, you testified about an impressive 

array of incentives. 

Mr. Hawkins testified that if you build here, you have got to 

build to LEED, didn’t you? 

Mr. HAWKINS. For the private sector, the LEED requirement will 

be in 2011. For District-owned buildings, the current requirement 

is that any new building must be LEED-certified. 

Ms. NORTON. That is a District-owned building. I thought you indicated there would be requirements for private—— 

Mr. HAWKINS. Absolutely, October 1, 2011, all private sector 

buildings need to be LEED-certified. 

Ms. NORTON. Do you have incentives the way Arlington does in 

order to encourage this? How has the industry, Mr. Shovan, received this mandate? First, are there incentives? 

Mr. HAWKINS. There are. Yes, there are incentives. 

And one of the questions on what can be done with roofs in particular is, a green roof, in some respects, is one of the best solutions 

and one of the ones that needs research and analysis for a broader 

financial rollout. 

Dollar for dollar, the best thing you can do for a roof in a built 

environment is to replace the old black tar roofs with a white cover. 

It reflects the heat rather than absorbing it. And that is by far, on 

an energy basis, per dollar, the best investment. 

40 

Ms. NORTON. So could you in Arlington or the District of Columbia—I hesitate to ask the Federal Government—replace a black tar 

roof with a black tar roof today? Do you have regulations that, say 

if you are going to use tar, it has got to be white at least? 

Mr. HAWKINS. I do not believe in the District that that regulation 

has—that there is a regulation that requires that change. 

Ms. NORTON. The other change requirement costs a lot of money. 

This looks like it is a little less expensive. 

Mr. HAWKINS. Correct. 

There is an incentive program, not big enough, that we worked 

with D.C. Greenworks to provide that came from the Department 

of the Environment. We have in the 2009 budget over a million dollars of incentives for low-impact design for built environment. 

I agree that the single biggest challenge is the existing building 

stock of any city. And we can get new buildings to reach very high 

standards—for many, not all, it is still a challenge—to be built into 

the cost structure. The existing stock, which is most of what we 

have, is where a lot of the action is. And there are a lot of the economics that still need to be proven. 

I think it is exactly the right place for government to step forward and provide financial incentives for the range of roof materials that can be experimented with to improve the technology. 

Ms. NORTON. You are on the receiving end of regulation at the 

District. I am very impressed with what the District is doing. Let’s 

see how impressed you are with it. 

Is the industry going to be able to get in line by the dates Mr. 

Hawkins has indicated? 

Mr. SHOVAN. It was in 2011? 

Ms. NORTON. 2011. 

Mr. SHOVAN. 2011 for new buildings. It is new construction. 

I don’t know. I would have to work with my AOBA folks and get 

back to you. 

Ms. NORTON. Is there any incentive today given—let me ask the 

question another way. 

Is there any incentive whatsoever, given the mounting costs of 

energy—probably the worst part of any single cost that a developer 

would receive—to do anything but what Arlington and the District 

are trying to, in fact, get to happen? Is there any reason not to do 

so, given the fact that you have got to pay, for the most part, for 

the energy yourselves? 

Mr. SHOVAN. I think that there are a lot of market—real estate 

market factors are that are moving building owners towards green 

certifications like LEED-EB. So it is more that tenants are starting—larger tenants are starting to ask for that. 

Ms. NORTON. What about commercial buildings? 

Mr. SHOVAN. That is what I mean. 

So, for a tenant who is going to be at the end of their lease and 

move, and they have two buildings that are comparable, if one is 

green, we have been seeing that, you know, they may go in that 

direction as opposed to the building that doesn’t have some sort of 

green certification. 

Ms. NORTON. So the development community must have testified. 

Or was this before this administration came into—— 

41 

Mr. HAWKINS. The Green Building Act was passed before the 

Fenty administration, although it was in the Council when he was 

part of the Council. 

Our sense is, there are always some developers who are not on 

board, but that the private sector is streaking ahead on this. And 

in the District most major commercial products that you see with 

the cranes around the city are being built to LEED-certified standards. 

And the private sector has shown tremendous leadership. We 

have been impressed by it. 

Ms. NORTON. I am going to try to make the Federal leasing process part of this incentive, because we are the ones that are the 

major lessors in the region. The District doesn’t lease or build 

much, for that matter, it is still a government agency for all that 

that implies. And yet it has got this forward-looking code and—including private developers in it, which I see in league with what 

we are trying to do with lessors. 

If the District says, you want to build new—of course, that’s new; 

then you have to be LEED—and we say, LEED. And then they 

come together. And you are going to get other jurisdictions meeting 

it, because you meet it at both ends. You meet it from the Federal 

Government, you meet it from local government. 

Mr. SHOVAN. It also becomes competition. Because if, as a property owner, you know that there are new buildings that are green 

buildings that are being delivered and your present portfolio 

doesn’t have any green certification, that is going to move you towards that so you can compete and attract those tenants that are 

becoming available. 

Ms. NORTON. Now, Ms. Kelsch, Mr. Epstein talks about subsidies 

and tax credits. Let me make sure I understand. 

Is there any tax credit in these jurisdictions, in these two jurisdictions for this? 

Ms. KELSCH. Not in Arlington. 

Ms. NORTON. What are the incentives? Apart from the mandates, 

what are the incentives? 

Ms. KELSCH. Arlington offers private developers a little extra 

density, so they can build a slightly bigger building if they meet 

LEED, green building standards. So they have a larger building 

they can lease out for the 40-, 50-year life of that building, which 

is—it is actually a great deal for developers. 

And we have had about a dozen projects that have taken us up 

on that. Two of them are finished and 10 are in the pipeline. 

Ms. NORTON. How about you, Mr. Hawkins? 

Mr. HAWKINS. The significant incentive under the Green Building Act is faster permits. We offer sort of the green permitting notion that if you do the right thing, you will get faster decisions. 

Ms. NORTON. That happens to be worth something in this town. 

Mr. HAWKINS. That would be true. 

One other thing I want to mention, I think is ripe: The green 

team we formed in the District, one of our first committees we 

formed was one about greening the leaseholds, because the District 

owns or leases a lot of buildings in the District, as well—not as 

many as the Feds, obviously. 

42 

One of the things that is coming down the pike in our renegotiated storm water—— 

Ms. NORTON. So what are you doing with those buildings? 

I am sorry. What are you doing with those that you lease? 

Mr. HAWKINS. We are seeking to renegotiate leases with green 

components within those. 

Ms. NORTON. You mean, existing leases before they expire? 

Mr. HAWKINS. Probably not. We are trying to do them in order. 

Let’s get the new ones right first. There is a fair number up for 

renegotiation now. 

Ms. NORTON. You are making more greening a significant factor 

in whether you release the building; is that what you are testifying? 

Mr. HAWKINS. That’s what we intend to do. 

Combined with, it is an interesting sideline on reducing energy 

use, we are decreasing the average square foot size of each office 

for D.C. personnel to try to decrease the footprint in total of any 

building that we would own or lease. 

But something that is coming down the pike that is very significant that connects to the Federal presence in the District is, we are 

redoing the storm water fees. And you have heard it mentioned. 

The new manner in which storm water fees will be applied is based 

on impervious cover. So currently, for example, if you own a parking lot you wouldn’t pay a storm water fee, because it is based on 

how much water you use, even though we know a parking lot generates a lot of storm water. 

One of the very significant elements we would like to bring in is 

that the Federal Government will pay its share—not a tax, because 

we know we can’t tax the Federal Government, but a fee-for-service. We have got to manage the storm water coming from these 

Federal facilities and build into it a market system. 

If you build better, lower your footprint, increase low-impact development, you pay less. If you decide not to, separate from the 

regulations one way or—— 

Ms. NORTON. A very important development, Mr. Siglin, and 

WASA has testified about it. They come to see us about it. 

Would you like to comment on the impervious—— 

Mr. SIGLIN. Actually, Congresswoman, what I would like to say 

is that my understanding—and I am not an expert on this, but my 

understanding is that H.R. 6, which is the energy bill that was recently passed by Congress, in fact, requires new Federal buildings 

to meet something called ′′predevelopment hydrology,′′ which is a 

very high standard for storm water, an extraordinarily high standard for storm water, and great progress. 

And the reason that that becomes important is because LEED is 

a voluntary point system. You can get your points for a LEED rating without doing the thing you need to do for storm water. So 

when we began to talk to the District about this not too long ago, 

we were talking about LEED-plus, that is to say, you need to 

have—it is a good thing to have incentives and even mandates for 

LEED certification, but that may not solve your water problem. 

Ms. NORTON. So wait a minute. In my opening statement I indicated that an important part of greening has to do with whether 

you lease or build close to waterways. Is there any third party who 

43 

is capable of advising entities that build close to waterways so that 

we know whether somebody has, you know, a LEED certification—— 

Mr. SIGLIN. Sure. 

Ms. NORTON. —who should not have one in that sense? Is that 

a part, at all, of what LEED is? 

Mr. SIGLIN. It is a part. You can gain parts. And there are people 

here at this table who are much more expert at this than I. So I 

will try not to say anything wrong, and then you can ask them. 

But my understanding is that you can gain points toward LEED 

certification for doing good things for storm water. But you can also 

gain LEED certification without getting those points if you get 

points elsewhere. 

So if your objective is to actually do something for cleaning up 

the storm water down to a zero pollutant discharge, you may have 

to go beyond the LEED rating system to do something more. 

Ms. NORTON. I think this is really important. I think it is really 

important. But I think we have to speak with the LEED people. 

We may need a different rating other than the LEED rating for 

people who build near waterways. This is important for the Nation, 

particularly because we are spending gazillions of dollars cleaning 

up, or trying to clean up; and others have just the problem we have 

in the District. 

Mr. SIGLIN. And this is actually why full implementation of the 

H.R. 6 provisions are going to be important. Because that is going 

to put the Federal Government to—sorry to use this, but—in the 

leading position for storm water management, as well. 

Ms. NORTON. I knew of your platinum signature. What is it, 

above all others, that gives one a platinum? 

Mr. SIGLIN. Why don’t I let one of my LEED-certified folks at the 

table answer how that works. I can answer it for our building specifically. 

Ms. NORTON. Yeah. What is it about yours that is so much better 

than LEED buildings here we are very proud of? 

Mr. SIGLIN. From the very outset of the design process we asked 

ourselves the question, what can we do with every element of this 

building to make it ecologically friendly? And I don’t have the statistics in hand, but for example, our building has more than 100 

people that work there. If I remember correctly, we use fewer than 

60 gallons of water a day for those 100 people that work there. 

One of the reasons we do that is because we put in a system that 

doesn’t use water in its plumbing in its toilet system. And that is 

a huge use of water in most commercial buildings. We don’t do that 

at all. 

Every piece of wood was either sustainable or it was manufactured in some way. We sited the building so that we take full advantage of the sun. We have got systems that open the windows 

and close the windows automatically depending on what the ambient temperature is. We have got I think 36 geothermal wells that 

provide the heat. 

We really went out on a limb to try do the very best we could. 

Ms. NORTON. This is an environmental organization that decides 

the way to lead the environment is to lead by example in the building you built? 

44 

Mr. SIGLIN. Yeah. 

Ms. NORTON. I just wanted to lay that on the record, because 

that is exactly what this Subcommittee hearing is about. 

Now I want to give everybody at the table an opportunity to be 

helpful to the Federal Government and to the District of Columbia. 

We had before us, at the hearing on the Capitol complex, District 

officials, Capitol Police and CAO, people who operate the Capitol. 

And we heard testimony about how people would get to the new 

so-called ′′CVC,′′ the Capitol Visitor Center, whose opening we are 

anxiously awaiting; we expect it to be finished in November—if you 

are close to any wood, knock on it. 

When it opens and after it is dedicated we have, as with all 

progress, yet a new problem. Or maybe we don’t. Mr. Hawkins may 

be familiar with that testimony. 

Here is the testimony: The tour buses will go to Union Station; 

50 places, they say, have been set aside for tour buses at Union 

Station. I have asked them to submit for the record where they are 

going to be, because it was hard for us to understand, given the 

other buses that are already up there, but that is what they say. 

They say that the people will get off the tour buses at Union Station and then they will catch the so-called Circulator. 

This is a tourist city, and these people are trying to get to the 

Capitol and to the CVC. Then after they get off their tour bus, they 

have got to pay a dollar to get on the Circulator to get to the CVC, 

which left me saying, Are you out of your mind? This is tourist 

friendly and environmental friendly, a two-stop process that costs 

you more money? 

And then to add insult to injury, we were told that the closing 

of First Street would continue, even though they are coming on the 

Circulator—which, of course, people would have every opportunity 

to make certain did not, in fact, disturb the security of the Capitol 

and surrounding area. But, no, we were told they can’t go through 

First Street; they have got to come all the way back down Louisiana and up Constitution Avenue. 

When you get through with the bottlenecks, with the multiple 

environmental and traffic and clean air issues posed, one has to 

wonder how anybody would come up with a notion like this. Just 

sitting here, scratching my head, I said, Don’t the tour buses drop 

off people now at the Botanic Garden and then go someplace? 

Yeah. 

For people who need a walkup, don’t we use nongas-powered golf 

carts? Yes. 

Why don’t we use that? No answer. 

Let me just put everybody on notice, especially the District, we 

are not going to do that. There will be something in either the Legislative, probably because there has been a hearing of—since then 

there has been a hearing of the Legislative Appropriations Subcommittee, and they went up the wall to hear about this two-stop 

process. 

And they are up the wall because they think of their constituents 

having to pay an extra dollar, having the two-stop process. I am 

up the wall because I represent a tourist-friendly, environmentalfriendly city, particularly given the testimony we see today, and I 

see huge harm to both. 

45 

One thing we can say for sure, these tour buses—and because 

the tour buses just want to get there. So they are trying to really 

push back. They say, We have got just the answer for you, Congresswoman: Let us come up Independence Avenue and Constitution Avenue and drop the people right off at the CVC in our neighborhoods, clogging up two of the streets that are most congested. 

No, they are not going to do that either. We are not going to have 

tour buses all around our neighborhoods. 

Obviously, the question has to do with the consistent and continuous failure to find a way for tour buses. But they find someplace 

to go now as they are dropped off. 

I am going to have to ask Mr. Hawkins, since we are all in the 

process of thinking this through, following that testimony, which 

was very recent, I am putting this on the table. I invite you to put 

on the table any suggestions you may have. Wouldn’t it make better sense for them to continue to drop them off at the Botanic Gardens, go about their business; and then the Capitol, that I guess 

provides the golf carts, deals with those who don’t believe, even 

given the obesity rate in this country, that they need to walk up 

the hill? 

The fact is that people stand under that awning; I never heard 

people complain about it. I do my race walk back there. They look 

happy waiting. 

So I am just looking—since I have asked them to come see me, 

once I heard that testimony, now they are going before yet another 

committee who complained. And one complained that she didn’t 

want her little 8-year-olds walking that far. Okay, maybe she can 

put that person in the golf cart. 

But, frankly, Mr. Hawkins, given how sensitive the District has 

been for years now to the environment, I was just shocked at the 

testimony. Now, it may have been the Capitol Police’s fault, although I tell you, the Circulator, it isn’t their fault. 

I asked them all to work together. At the time I asked them to 

work together, they said First Street would be open. I will have to 

deal with that. But the whole notion of the two-step process will 

enrage people. And so I need to know from you—because you didn’t 

have to do with this perhaps, or maybe you did—whether you think 

the Botanic Garden solution is a better solution, whether you can 

think of a better solution, and any insight or suggestions you can 

offer as we prepare to open the CVC, the new Visitor Center. 

Mr. HAWKINS. This is not testimony or an issue that I am personally familiar with other than what I have seen in the press. I 

will commit to going back to my office, looking into it, and getting 

back to you. 

Ms. NORTON. Because I thought you had a team approach. You 

mean to say, they didn’t consult you about bringing a whole bunch 

of new buses to Union Station? 

They couldn’t even answer my questions about where they are 

going to go. Well, you know, they will go around Columbus Circle 

and they will somehow get up there. It was an atrocity. It was 

somebody deciding that the best way is to somehow get these people close to a Circulator. 

46 

I don’t mind that, since we have people on the Circulator, we 

bring them here; fine, put them on the Circulator wherever they 

are. I know this is a traffic management problem. 

But you said, everybody kind of works together. And this was a 

jerry-built matter that invites Congress—because 20 million people 

come here; most of them are their folks—to do something about it. 

I think you can see the difficulty—— 

Mr. HAWKINS. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. —of people who simply want to get there. 

Mr. HAWKINS. You certainly have raised legitimate points. It was 

not an issue that was brought to my agency that I know of. But 

I will find out and we will get back to you. 

Ms. NORTON. I would like you to speak with the traffic people. 

We had Mr. Moneme, and he has been very good in working with 

us. We had the Capitol Police. They all are supposed to be coming 

in to see me. 

But I would like the District to get together before you—you 

have even done a very good job in trying to deal with, really, traffic 

situations not in your control, and most of these people are going 

someplace else. And the District does very well. You know, we have 

done—with the renovated Frederick Douglas Bridge, we have done 

a lot of stuff. 

But this looks like a real throwback that didn’t have all hands 

on deck trying to think it through. There is far from a perfect solution to this. 

Let me ask you this, Mr. Hawkins. Are you or anybody else, I 

would think you would be a part of this, involved in where these 

buses would go, no matter what we are talking about? We have 

hundreds of tour buses that come. Many of them involve children; 

half the tourists who come are school children. What do we do with 

tour buses? 

What is our—Mr. Siglin testified that highways is—because he 

knows the highway bill is coming up. We are glad to have them 

here. It is very hard in this city, which doesn’t have a lot of land, 

to just say, tour buses go here, go there—to find a place for them 

to go. 

Now that we are going to have thousands more people coming, 

just because there is a new convention center—sorry, Capitol Visitor Center—what are we going to do with those tour buses? 

Mr. HAWKINS. I will talk to Director Moneme this afternoon to 

determine what DDOT’s role has been and what their—— 

Ms. NORTON. Quite apart from the CVC. 

Mr. HAWKINS. Yeah. Our agency is connected to tour buses on 

engine idling. 

Ms. NORTON. Say it again. 

Mr. HAWKINS. On engine idling. There are regulations in the District that obligate buses or any vehicle not to sit and idle and be 

spewing air emissions. 

Ms. NORTON. I understand this is not your jurisdiction, but I admire your team approach, and it is going to take a team approach 

to solve. 

Mr. Siglin, I don’t know, do you have something to say on that? 

47 

Mr. SIGLIN. Congresswoman, I ride a commuter bus into the District now. I moved from the District a couple years ago, after having lived here a long time. 

Ms. NORTON. Shame on you, Mr. Siglin. Go ahead. 

Mr. SIGLIN. But I do know that one of the things that is really 

important is to get the engine turned off on the bus as quickly as 

possible. And one of the challenges that Mr. Tangherlini taught me 

when he was the head of the DOT here was, you have got to get 

the buses to a place where they can sit and have their engines 

turned off; and I think that is our sort of ongoing challenge. 

And I certainly don’t want to put myself out on a limb about this 

CVC problem, but I would guess that what they are trying to 

achieve is to get the buses over to Union Station and get their engines turned off as quickly as possible. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, Mr. Hawkins, the CVC, he wants to make 

sure they are not running, that the engines aren’t running. And 

sometimes we see them in places and there is nothing we can do 

about it because we don’t want to chase all the tourists out of town. 

We see them in places where they are cut off, and I am sure that 

is an enforcement matter. 

Mr. Hawkins, you testified that much of your work has to do 

with enforcement. But this is a chronic problem—I noticed it only 

when I came to Congress—and it has to do with no land available 

here. 

I don’t know if the land around RFK can be used. That is Federal 

land. And I certainly would be willing to work with the District to 

finally settle this question as we now build on every blade of grass 

and nearly have no place in the city for them to find a place. 

I anticipate a crisis is what I am saying, particularly given the 

plan they have come up with, that you go here and then you pay 

us a dollar and maybe we will get you to the Capitol of the United 

States. That is never going into effect. And so I would like to find 

a solution, a win-win solution that is agreeable to the District and 

that the Congress will accept, without trying to butt into our affairs. 

One more question, and that is—this should be of some interest 

particularly to Mr. Siglin. I struggled, and finally after 2 years got 

a bill through the Congress that gives the District, which doesn’t 

have much land, a great deal of land that it now owns, that the 

Federal Government owns, land which we call Reservation 13 near 

RFK and the land that is called Poplar Point. There was always 

some building on Reservation 13 because we had our own hospital, 

prison and the rest there, although I am sure that there will—in 

fact, there are plans for truly new residential and commercial, perhaps, construction there, which means new attention to the environment because that land is near the Anacostia. 

The most precious land is the Poplar Point land. That land is on 

the banks of the Anacostia. Neither the Framers nor anybody else 

ever envisioned that there would be development on Poplar Point. 

Of course, that is 200 years back. 

It is pristine land. Our bill says 70 percent of it must remain 

parkland. But it doesn’t bar building on that land. The Park Service will have a small portion there. The District has already announced some of what will be built there. 

48 

I have to ask you, therefore, Mr. Hawkins, have you begun to 

work to assure that the pristine nature of Poplar Point will not be 

disturbed by the fairly monumental plan that has already been announced for building on Poplar Point? 

Mr. HAWKINS. In fact, a whole crew of our team did a tour on 

Poplar Point just 2 days ago. We have been very engaged. We are 

grateful for the ′′land swap,′′ as we call it, where the District has 

gained—or will gain title to a significant piece of land. Poplar Point 

is probably the most significant. 

There are stringent environmental regulations that will apply to 

this development since it is along the Anacostia. There is the 70- 

acre natural set-aside that you built into the legislation from the 

beginning that must be accommodated. 

We sat, the Department of Environment sat on the review committee of the development proposals that came in, and at least in 

our judgment, of the proposals, the one that was selected was by 

far the most environmentally beneficial to the project. It is a large 

development project, however. 

We will be there every step of the way to make sure every one 

of our regulations is applied, that the 70-acre set-aside is meaningful on an ecological basis, and that the site is developed in an environmental way to the best extent it can be. It ought to be truly, 

as you suggested, envisioning what can be done, rather than what 

has been done in the past. 

Ms. NORTON. This is going to be a model for building on a river. 

It is your land now, and I am trying to make sure that the Park 

Service understands it is your land now. 

Mr. Siglin, do you believe that the District of Columbia can build 

on this land without doing damage to the Anacostia? 

Mr. SIGLIN. Poplar Point itself is pretty highly polluted because 

of the former use. And so one of the things that is important at 

Poplar Point is to get the current level of pollution down. 

Ms. NORTON. You mean on the land itself? 

Mr. SIGLIN. Yes. And oftentimes the way these things work is 

that that land sat there polluted for decades when it was in the 

hands of the Park Service, and the Park Service never got the 

money together to clean it up. Actually, it belonged to the Architect 

of the Capitol before that, and that is where the pollution comes 

from, when it belonged to the Architect. 

But it has sat there, polluted, for a very long time. And the pollution runs through the groundwater into the river, 24/7, so we have 

been having a load of pollution go off that site for a long time. 

Because it is often easier to get the money together to do cleanups if the private sector gets involved, sometimes the way this stuff 

works is that you get a development project that promises to clean 

up the land in exchange for being able to develop there. And that 

seems to me to be an inevitability here, in this case, that there is 

probably going to be some kind of development there. And I guess 

that all I would hope for is that Mr. Hawkins and his folks are able 

to achieve what he says they can, which is to do it to the very highest environmental standards. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, this project is going to be watched closely— 

it will be watched by me because of my concerns. But frankly, I 

think everybody is going to be looking. A lot of building is going 

49 

on on rivers. And this is perhaps the newest, when you consider 

how extensive the building along the river will be, or around the 

river, I should say. 

Now, at the time that I worked on the Southeast Federal Center, 

I was able to get the Federal Government to do the cleaning because we were talking about Federal use of the land. When I tried 

to do that—we are the polluters of this land. It was our land, as 

Mr. Siglin said. The Capitol itself, the Park Service, no matter how 

you look at it, the guilty party here was the Federal Government. 

But what the District got—and Mr. Hawkins can call it a ′′swap′′ 

all he wants to—what the District got was, because the swap is 

very jerry-built, was essentially a virtual gift of very valuable private land in return for little snippets here and there. And I was 

not able, I was not even a little bit able to get Uncle Sam—I was 

even in the minority at the time, mind you—to get Uncle Sam to 

consider cleaning up his own waste the way he did with the Southeast Federal Center. 

And as you know, a lot of my bill really means that the Southeast Federal Center is going to be used for essentially private purposes. We were able to put in the bill, Mr. Hawkins, a notion that 

essentially says the District may allow the developer—the District 

does have this responsibility, but may indeed allow the developer 

to contribute to this cleanup, because this cleanup and meeting the 

Federal environmental standards, which are still there, is going to 

be important. And I very much regret and apologize that the Federal Government didn’t clean up what it messed up, but it thought 

it was offering a gift, and what more can you ask for was its attitude. 

I am certainly convinced that your agency is in the frontiers of 

trying to work on these agencies. I think much more than the ballpark, you will have lots of folks looking at the District. And it may 

cost more. And you may decide not to build so close to the water; 

I certainly hope so. 

But—it is a big challenge, but given the work that you have 

done, that Arlington has done, I am proud of the frontier approach 

you have, not simply dealing with things as they already were. I 

just can’t say enough, as we deal with the Anacostia initiatives; 

Mr. Siglin was very helpful to me in all my work on that bill, which 

we finally got out of Congress last year. 

Let me ask this final question. Have any of you been approached 

by the Corps of Engineers on—my Anacostia River bill, which was 

passed through this Committee as a part of the Water Resources 

Development Act, I guess last year, gives the Corps 1 year to work 

with all of the appropriate, surrounding jurisdictions to come up 

with a 10-year plan for restoring the Anacostia, which is the predicate for any substantial money that I and my colleagues here in 

the Congress can get for further Anacostia cleanup beyond what we 

get on a yearly basis. 

Have you been approached? Are you in the throes of doing the 

plan? What can you tell me about the plan that the Congress says 

must be prepared within a year? 

Mr. SIGLIN. Congresswoman, I haven’t talked to the Corps since 

the last time I came to see you about that. I don’t know where they 

50 

are in their planning now. But I would certainly be happy to find 

out and put it in the record, if that would be helpful to you. 

Ms. NORTON. It would be even more likely that they would have 

approached the District—— 

Mr. Hawkins. 

Mr. HAWKINS. They have approached—— 

Ms. NORTON. —and, for that matter, Arlington. 

Ms. KELSCH. No. 

Mr. HAWKINS. They have approached the District. 

Ms. NORTON. They have? 

Mr. HAWKINS. They have. We have talked to the Army Corps 

about how to approach building this plan. 

I don’t know if Dana is still here and may have an update from 

the Anacostia Restoration Partnership. Dana Minerva may be able 

to update you on the status. 

Ms. NORTON. I can talk with you after. I just invite you to help 

me monitor this 1-year deadline so that we can make sure that the 

Corps is—we have had them in our office; and they have already 

done some work, Mr. Siglin, as you may be aware, on it. 

But that work bothered me, that some of the first work they 

have done, it seems to me, should have been completed by now. So 

the more local jurisdictions not only cooperate with them but press 

them, the better off we are. 

Now, finally, let me just put in the record the whole point is that 

the Federal Government is not going to alone clean up the Anacostia River. This is going to be a plan that involves all of those 

on the river. And all those on the river are responsible for what 

has happened to the river. 

I happen to think, I believe I can show, that the Federal Government historically has been the largest, and continues in many 

ways, not entirely, to be a heavy contributor to the pollution of the 

Anacostia. And so the real challenge is not just getting the plan, 

but getting the local jurisdictions to agree that they will do their 

share if the Federal Government agrees to do its share. 

The testimony of all of you has been very important, and it has 

been important for us to see you all at the table to hear whether 

Mr. Shovan agrees with our two colleagues from government; to 

hear Mr. Siglin, who is trying to do it with the river, incorporate 

his work into green roofs; as Mr. Epstein and D.C. Greenroofs 

works diligently to see happens in the private and public sector. 

And as we try to figure what is the next thing for the real leader 

in the environment to do, the Federal Government, your testimony 

will be very, very important to any new legislation, new requirements we ourselves as a Subcommittee come forward with at this 

time. 

Thank you very much for your testimony. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:04 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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41988.041
88 


41988.042
89 


41988.043
90 


41988.044
91 


41988.045
92 


41988.046
93 


41988.047
94 


41988.048
95 


41988.049
96 


41988.050
97 


41988.051
98 


41988.052
99 


41988.053
100 


41988.054
101 

Æ 


41988.055