UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

OFFICE OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND RENEWABLE ENERGY 

PUBLIC MEETING 

 

SUSTAINABLE DESIGN STANDARDS 

FOR FEDERAL BUILDINGS 

U.S. Department of Energy 

1000 Independence Avenue, SW 

Washington, DC 20585 

 Room 8E-089 

 

 Wednesday 

July 28, 2010 

 

Chair: 

Cyrus Nasseri 

Department of Energy 

(FEMP) 

Facilitator: 

Jim Raba 

Department of Energy 
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Participants Identified: 

Mark Ames 

American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and AirConditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) 

Margo Appel 

US Department of Energy (DOE) 

Todd Apple 

Dupont 

Tim Ballo 

Earthjustice 

John Barry 

International Union of Operating Engineers National 

Training Fund 

Allen Blakey 

The Vinyl Institute 

Nadine Block 

Sustainable Forestry Initiative 

Saralyn Bunch 

US Department of Energy (DOE) 

Chris Calamita 

US Department of Energy (DOE) 

Matthew Carlson 

Sunnovations, Inc. 

Emma Cheuse 

Earthjustice 

Ryan Colker 

National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) 

Keith Cook 

Philips 

Catherine Fairlie 

US Air Force 

Jonathan Feldman 

Wellford 
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Saroya Follender 

US Air Force 

Melissa Gallagher-Rogers 

US Green Building Council (USGBC) 

Robert Glowinski 

American Wood Council 

Ami Grace-Tardy 

US Department of Energy (DOE) 

Nora Grojean 

Northrop Grumman 

William Hall 

Winston & Strawn, LLP 

Mark Halverson 

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) 

Dain Hansen 

International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical 

Officials (IAPMO) 

Erica Harkins 

US Fuel Cell Council 

Melissa Hockstad 

Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) 

Harry Indig 

US Department of Energy (DOE) 

David Karmol 

International Code Council (ICC) 

Richard Kidd 

US Department of Energy (DOE) 

Tanya Lawrence 

Northrop Grumman 

Brian Ledgerwood 

International Trade Administration 

Michael Lubliner 

Washington State University 
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Robert Lucas 

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) 

Ross Montgomery 

ASHRAE 

Cyrus Nasseri 

US Department of Energy (DOE) 

Justin Neumann 

National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) 

Kevin Ott 

Flexible Vinyl Alliance 

Graham Parker 

Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL) 

Douglas Read 

ASHRAE 

Mark Rossolo 

Greenguard Environmental Institute 

Randal P. Schumacher 

Schumacher Partners International, LLC 

Erin Shaffer 

Green Building Initiative 

John L. Stanley 

TRANE 

Louisa Stetekluh 

Osbourne Books 

Mike Thompson 

TRANE 

Luci Vallejo-Mastrianni 

International Code Council (ICC) 

Ellen Vaughan 

Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) 

Drew Vogt 

N. H. Yates & Co., Inc. 

Meg Waltner 

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) 
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Rick Weiland 

International Code Council (ICC) 

Sara Yerkes 

International Code Council (ICC) 
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I N D E X

AGENDA ITEMS PAGE

Welcome, Mr. Raba 7 

Introductions 9 

Opening Remarks, Richard Kidd 13 

Agenda Review, Mr. Raba 15 

Overview of Sustainable Design Standards 20 

For Federal Buildings Notice of Proposed 

Rulemaking, Cyrus Nasseri 

Stakeholders' Statements 38 

Closing Remarks 120
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 9:07 a.m. 

 MR. RABA: Well, good morning and welcome 

again to the Department of Energy to today's public 

meeting on Sustainable Design Standards for Federal 

Buildings. Let's get started. 

 Today's meeting is important because the 

Department would like to hear your comments and your 

views as it's related to sustainable design standards 

for federal buildings. The purpose of today's public 

meeting is two-fold: to provide an overview from 

departments as to proposed rulemaking that would revise 

these performance standards in construction of new 

federal buildings and major renovations of federal 

buildings and generally the proposed standards to 

establish certain sustainable design requirements for 

new federal buildings and renovations to federal 

buildings. But equally important is the input that we 

gather from you, interested parties, gathered here 

today and in your written comments that you wish to 

submit. And the Department of Energy needs to hear 

from you any comments, information, and data that you 

provide would be most helpful and most appreciated. 

 So, moreover, we don't have time to solve the 

issues today, but we intend to listen to all the views, 
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gather the facts, make clarification as needed -- the 

rulemaking process takes time, but DOE strives to 

ensure that all comments are fully considered. 

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 I'm Jim Raba and I will be facilitating 

today's public meeting. I am your neutral servant. 

That is, I will not evaluate or contribute any of my 

own ideas. I will try to keep us on task, on focus and 

give everybody the opportunity to speak. Kind of 

shepherd the process, if you will. And I see some 

familiar faces and some new faces certainly. So by a 

show of hands how many are here for the first time? 

 (Showing of hands.) 

 MR. RABA: I see a majority of hands, for the 

record. So this is a good time then for introductions, 

if you would, please. Please state your name clearly 

and the organization that you represent or with which 

you are affiliated. 

 We are making a transcript of today's public 

meeting and that will be available later on. So if you 

would each go around the room in turn. As you see 

before you, at the tables, microphones. The green 

light is on, so snuggle up to the microphone. Also in 

the back we have standing mikes back there. Again, in 

turn, please step to the mike, speak your name clearly 

for the record and the organization or company that you 
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 And later during the day you will receive a 

copy of the attendance list of all who have registered 

for the meeting and hence the business cards you 

dropped off at the reception desk. So let's go around 

the room at this time, starting here. 

 MR. NASSERI: Cyrus Nasseri, Project Manager, 

DOE, Federal Energy Management Program. 

 MR. KIDD: Richard Kidd, Program Manager of 

the Federal Energy Management Program. 

 MS. APPEL: Margo Appel, Department of Energy 

in the Building Technologies Program. 

 MR. CALAMITA: Chris Calamita with the 

Department of Energy's Office of General Counsel. 

 MS. GRACE-TARDY: Ami Grace-Tardy with the 

Department of Energy, Office of General Counsel. 

 MR. MONTGOMERY: Ross Montgomery, ASHRAE, 

Vice President. 

 MR. BLAKEY: Allen Blakey with the Vinyl 

Institute. 

 MR. APPLE: Todd Apple, Director of 

Government Programs for the Dupont Company. 

 MR. THOMPSON: Mike Thompson with 

Manufacturer Ingersoll Rand representing the companies 

Trane, Thermal King, and Huspin which are all owned by 
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Ingersoll Rand. 

 MR. OTT: I'm Kevin Ott with the Flexible 

Vinyl Alliance. 

 MR. HALL: Bill Hall from the law firm of 

Winston and Strawn on behalf of the North American 

Coalition on Green Buildings. 

 MR. WEILAND: And I'm Rick Weiland with the 

International Code Council. 

 MR. RABA: In the back, please, first row 

start. 

 MR. STANLEY: John Stanley, Ingersoll Rand 

representing TRANE. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. 

 MS. HARKINS: Erica Harkins, U.S. Fuel Cell 

Council. 

 MR. RABA: Okay. Thank you. 

 MR. NEUMAN: Justin Neumann, National 

Electrical Manufacturers Association. 

 MR. COOK: Keith Cook, Phillips Lighting and 

a member of NEMA. 

 MR. AMES: Good morning, Mark Ames with 

ASHRAE. 

 MR. READ: Good morning, Doug Read with 

ASHRAE, Washington, D.C. office. 

 MS. WALTNER: Meg Waltner, Natural Resources 
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Defense Council. 

 MS. HOCKSTAD: Melissa Hockstad, SPI, The 

Plastics Industry Association. 

 MR. BARRY: My name is John Barry. I 

represent the International Union of Operating 

Engineers National Training Fund. We are the 

stationary engineers that operate and maintain 

commercial facilities including government facilities. 

 MR. COLKER: Ryan Colker, National Institute 

of Building Sciences. 

 MS. BUNCH: Saralyn Bunch, Building 

Technologies Program, DOE. 

 LTC FOLLENDER: Lieutenant Colonel Saroya 

Follender, Air Force Sustainment Programs. 

 MS. FARLIE: Catherine Farlie, I work for the 

U.S. Air Force Civil Engineer. 

 MS. LAWRENCE: Good morning, Tanya Lawrence, 

U.S. Air Force Civil Engineers Energy. 

 MS. GROJEAN: Nora Grojean, I'm with the Air 

Force, Civil Engineer, Energy Branch. 

 MS. CHEUSE: Good morning, Emma Cheuse from 

Earthjustice. 

 MS. RALPH: Anna Ralph with Earthjustice. 

 MR. BALLO: Tim Ballo with Earthjustice. 

 MR. LEDGERWOOD: Brian Ledgerwood, U.S. 
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Department of Commerce, International Trade 

Administration. 

 MS. BLOCK: Good morning, Nadine Block with 

the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. 

 MR. LUBLINER: Mike Lubliner, Washington 

State University Energy Extension Program. 

 MR. GLOWINSKI: Robert Glowinski, American 

Wood Council. 

 MS. YERKES: Sara Yerkes, International Code 

Council. 

 MR. CARMEL: Dave Karnol, International Code 

Council. 

 MR. INDIG: (Inaudible) Harry Indig, 

Department of Energy, Building Technologies Program. 

 MS. RU: Ashley Ru, I'm in training for the 

NMSA. 

 MR. FELDMAN: John Feldman with Welfare to 

Energy on behalf of Calstar Products. 

 MR. RABA: Back here. 

 MR. LUCAS: Robert Lucas, Pacific Northwest 

National Laboratory. 

 MR. HALVERSON: Mark Halverson, Pacific 

Northwest National Laboratory. 

 MS. VALLEJO-MASTRIANNI: Luci VallejoMastrianni, International Code Council. 
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 MR. RABA: Did everyone have a chance? 

 Well, thank you, you're all going to 

Hollywood. 

 (Laughter.) 

 MR. RABA: We have some opening remarks from 

Mr. Richard Kidd. 

OPENING REMARKS 

 MR. KIDD: Good morning, everyone. Thanks 

for coming today. We appreciate so much interest 

across the spectrum from private industry, academia and 

the various NGO interest groups. I would like to just 

briefly introduce -- put today's activity into context, 

if you will. 

 The proposed rulemaking under consideration 

today grows out of some of the statutory requirements 

contained in ESA of 2007. But all should understand 

that it's also occurring in the context of Executive 

Order 13514 which was signed by President Obama on 

October 5th, the Executive Order Federal Leadership in 

Environmental Energy and Economic Performance. 

Contained in that Executive Order is extensive 

reference to the guiding principles of federal 

leadership in higher performance and sustainable 

buildings. The Executive Order establishes greenhouse 

gas reduction as an integrating metric for federal 
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performance going forward. Be that performance in 

buildings, in fleet operations, in waste management, 

and this is linked to many of the other ongoing 

activities across the federal government as well as 

statutory requirements. 

 Today's proposed rulemaking will shortly be 

followed by a complementary activity on fossil fuel 

reduction in federal premises which is also called for 

by EISA and will be coming out shortly. 

 So I want all to understand that this is not 

a stand-alone activity but it's part of a continuation 

and evolution of the federal stance where it comes 

towards energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction, 

a federal evolution that is contained in statute as 

well as Executive Order. 

 We've set this up so that hopefully everyone 

in the room today who wants to will have the 

opportunity to speak, although time could be limited. 

And everyone is also encouraged and many of you have 

submitted more detailed written testimony which we 

appreciate and prefer. And all of the statements will 

be entered into the docket and addressed as we develop 

the follow-on rule. 

 Going forward the Department of Energy is 

going to make a few changes in our rulemaking process 
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with the aim of improving the coordination with some of 

the appliance and building standards that are also 

under development. So what's going to happen is that 

going forward the Building Technologies Program which 

is well represented here today will take over the final 

revisions and development of this rule as well as other 

facilities-related rules that apply in the federal 

sector while FEMP will continue to provide the 

coordination and agency support and outreach to the 

federal agencies that have such a vested stake in those 

rules and who will eventually have to implement them. 

 If there are any questions for me, I'm happy 

to take them now, otherwise we're not too far behind 

yet and we're only three or four minutes behind and 

maybe we can quickly turn over to our moderator and get 

back on schedule. 

 Again, thanks, everyone, for coming. 

Introduction and Agenda Review 

 MR. RABA: And thank you. So let's run 

through today's agenda and talk about some ground 

rules, housekeeping matters and go straight into the 

overview of sustainable design standards for federal 

buildings. You should have a copy of today's agenda 

and other informative materials with you. 
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 I understand that this information and the 

presentation slides and transcript will be made 

available on the DOE Federal Energy Management 

Program's website. Typically the website will have the 

transcript up there in about ten days to two weeks 

following the public meeting here today. 

 So, look at the agenda, it's pretty 

straightforward really. We have an overview, a 

presentation, we'll see how that goes and maybe take a 

break if there's time, depending on the flow of how 

today's meeting goes we're going to continue on or 

whatever. We'll be flexible there. Then we have 

comments from you, the interested parties who are here 

today. It is most valuable for the Department to hear 

your views and the information you can provide to the 

Department. 

 Lunchtime, more statements, and then possibly 

a break in the afternoon, and time for questions and 

answers to be sure everybody is heard, things are 

clearly understood and so we'll all feel comfortable. 

And some of the key issues you'll hear later on in the 

presentations initially will be fairly covered and 

aired and the Department will hear your views on them 

too. So, pretty straightforward. So we'll kind of 

take it step-by-step. So let's get started. 
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 Questions about the agenda? Pretty simple, 

but we'll get into it. 

 The ground rules, we call them, well, 

actually they call them NORMS nowadays. These have 

been adopted over time. We kind of have a tradition 

with the Department of Energy, kind of tried and true 

things, keeping it flowing, get the most of our your 

time -- for your time. So you want to speak clearly 

into the microphone and say your name for the record. 

Keep the focus up here. And that is to please turn off 

your cell phones or put them on vibrate so as to not 

interrupt the proceedings. And if you have sidebar 

conversations, you're asked to limit them and if need 

be take them outside in the room back there or in the 

hallway. But keep the sidebar conversation please to a 

minimum. 

 Throughout listen as an ally. We're all 

working together for a good common purpose here. We 

are going to focus on issues not personalities. DOE 

wants to hear from you, your experiences and 

information and constructive comments from your own 

perspective on proposed parameters for sustainable 

design standards for federal buildings independent of 

any particular system. And we would ask you to limit 

comments about comments if you would, please. 
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 And just know that it's okay to disagree. 

Raise your hand if you wish to speak so I can recognize 

you and I'll give everybody a chance. I will be 

queuing persons to speak, so everyone who wishes will 

be heard. 

 I recognize that your time is valuable and we 

want to keep it moving, keep up the pace. There's a 

lot to cover, so, please, hold questions until there's 

a logical break in a presentation, if you would, 

please. 

 And, another thing, participate. You're the 

reason for today's public meeting. And remember, 

there's still time, two more weeks, to submit comments. 

 About two weeks for written comments. And in all 

things, please be concise and share the air time. 

 One more thing, if I mess up, please let me 

know right away so I can fix it and we can move on. 

 Thank you. Any questions so far? 

 (No response.) 

 MR. RABA: None seen. Again, today's meeting 

is to hear all views and gather information not to 

solve the issues or problems. 

 Some necessary housekeeping items before we 

start with our first presenter. Your visitor badges 

and security, be sure to display them at all times in 
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the building, it's a secure area, up high so that 

security can see you. Remember to wear them. If you 

go outside the building for any reason you will have to 

get rescreened when you come back in again. 

 The emergency exits are either the passageway 

here, there are stairwells, and they lead down and we 

would ask that you exit on the first floor, that would 

be the best way out. 

 The restrooms, either end of the passageway 

also. 

 A place to eat, very important, there's a 

snack bar directly below us and a cafeteria in the West 

Building. You can follow folks as they go when we 

break for lunch. 

 Coffee breaks and lunch are approximate 

times. So we can take them as convenient, but not 

interrupt a presentation or a flow of the meeting. 

 And, again, the coffee shop is directly below 

on the "G", the ground floor level. The cafeteria is 

in the West Building. Successful way is the E 

corridor, you don't have to leave the building, go 

under the street, take the building itself. We can go 

over that later on when we get to that time of day. 

 Before we leave today we give you an 

evaluation form to fill out about the content of 
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today's public meeting, some constructive things that 

are helpful there for the Department to look at for 

future meetings. 

 If you have a laptop computer, you probably 

got a receipt from security when they checked it in. 

Make sure you show the receipt when you check it out. 

 Questions? 

 (No response.) 

 MR. RABA: Your statements today, written 

comments, and any supporting documents would be most 

helpful. Mr. Cyrus Nasseri will be the presiding 

officer for today's public meeting. He will give an 

overview of sustainable design standards for federal 

buildings. 

Overview of Sustainable Design Standards for Federal 

Buildings Notice of Proposed Rulemaking 

 MR. NASSERI: Thank you very much, Jim. I'm 

fortunate to have such a loud tone of voice that I 

don't need any speaker. Do I need a microphone? 

 MR. RABA: For the record. 

 MR. NASSERI: Oh, I'm right next to the court 

reporter here. 

 Anyway, thank you very much. Richard 
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introduced basically how the program is going to be 

handled in the future. And also what I would like to 

do at this point to appreciate or thank the rulemaking 

team. 

 This rule, as you all know, sustainable 

design of Federal buildings, there are so many items 

and issues involved in sustainability design of 

buildings and it wasn't one of the easier rules to 

draft. But for the last year or year and a half a team 

of general counsel, Chris Calamita here and Ami and 

also we're missing policy from Office of Policy, Mark 

Friedrichs, and he is not here, also contributed to the 

drafting of this rule. 

 Also a lab, PNNL, Mark Halverson and Robert 

Lucas, they were very much involved and very familiar 

with issues of the rule that we drafted. They are also 

very familiar with the building codes. And I am so 

glad to see so many faces here that I am very familiar 

with and I know them, ASHRAE or ICC and all other 

activities. 

 What I would like to do is to go ahead and 

give you overview of the rule that we developed/drafted 

and specifically identify from the draft rule what 

comments and items we specifically would like the 

commenters to comment, again, during the comment 
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period, the last slide, you can see that you have until 

August 12th to comment, midnight August 12th to receive 

your comments and all that. And also what you say 

today and the transcripts of this workshop or public 

meeting is going to be available later on, on the 

website for everybody to have access and have a copy. 

 Okay. Let me go to the legislative 

background of this rule and also what's coming up and 

where we are with it right now. The legislative 

authority started in 1992 and that was Energy 

Conservation and Production Act Section 305. And the 

rules EPAct 2005 and also Energy Independence and 

Security Act (EISA) of 2007 Are revisions of that rule 

and those are the ones specifically we're talking about 

ECPA and EISA, Energy Policy Act, called EPAct. Both 

of those acts mention about sustainability of federal 

buildings and we will talk about that more in detail. 

 As you see here, sustainability design which 

the draft rule was published on the 28th of May,is the 

subject of this public meeting today. It was first 

mentioned in EPAct 2005, Section 109, you all are 

probably familiar with and you've read it before. EPact 

mentioned Life cycle cost effectiveness requirement to 

design sustainable buildings. And also in EISA the same 

thing was basically mentioned but this time it was for 
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certain buildings and we talk about that during the 

next slides. Also addition of major renovation was 

added to the buildings and then in the rules we have 

defined what the major renovation means. And also in 

this rule again I should mention no mention of life 

cycle cost effectiveness. 

 Also two more items or areas are covered in 

this proposed rule today. One is the minimum 

requirement for green building certification systems 

and you all are familiar with that system such as 

USGBC, LEED or Green Globe, those are just two examples 

of this rating certification programs. Then I'll tell 

you in brief what is presented in the rule and then we 

would like to hear from you and in your comments. 

 Also 30 percent of the water heating for 

federal buildings should be provided via solar energy 

if possible. And also as I said at the bottom this is 

a modification to the ECPA, Energy Conservation and 

Production Act of 1992. And that is the citation, 42 

U.S.C. 6834. 

 Current status, okay, you all probably 

remember having seen what we published in 2007 that was 

again mandated by Energy Policy Act 2005. That, 

Federal buildings should be at least 30 percent better 

than the building codes, national building codes. And 
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in that rule building codes we're referring, this is 

coming from the statute, for commercial buildings was 

the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and 

Air-Conditioning Engineers Standard 90.1 2004. For 

residential buildings referred to IECC, International 

Energy Conservation Code, Standard 2004. Legislation 

refers to 2004, even though that was a supplement to 

2003, original document. So those are the baseline for 

those two standards and it was published in December of 

2007, something like that, and then it was effective by 

January 2007. Federal agencies for new buildings should 

follow those requirements. 

 Again, comment period for today’s rule ends 

on August 12th. We are looking forward to seeing your 

written comments then we will review all the comments 

and then draft the final rule. We will basically reply 

to every commenter and the comments and what the 

decision by the Department was on that in the preamble 

of the final rule. 

 All the rulemakings will go through the 

concurrence process. In other words, internally and 

then finally in the Office of Management and Budget. 

They all have to concur prior to publication in the 

Federal Register. 

 Another notice that we are working on, and as 
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I speak it's with the Office of Management and Budget, 

is the reduction of fossil fuel. We are looking 

forward to have that rule to be concurred by that 

office and then to be able to publish that proposed 

rule. We have the same procedure as this one, public 

meeting, comment period and so forth. 

 Okay. Here is basically for building 

classification I put this slide here so what we have 

what are the buildings covered by the Energy 

Independence and Security Act of 2007 and the areas 

that relates to Federal buildings. Federal buildings 

definition is defined in the third or second page of 

the NOPR. It's a very long definition and I recommend 

that you read that definition of what the Federal 

building is. 

 Also the statute says Federal building or the 

buildings which are more than 2.5 million, cost more 

than 2.5 million. Those are the areas from EISA for 

federal buildings. And as you see, you know, a 

sustainable design requirement for the EISA type 

building apply life cycle effectiveness, but for the 

rest of the Federal buildings applies only if life 

cycle cost effective. 

 And also on the green building rating system 

as I mentioned the requirements applies to EISA type 
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buildings. And for the rest of the building do not. 

In other words agencies can select any kind of a green 

program that they would like to apply to their 

buildings, but not the EISA covered buildings. 

 EISA building covers major renovations. I 

read some of the statements. There are some comments on 

the definition of major renovation. 

 The major renovation does not apply to the 

rest of the Federal buildings. 

 Okay. Consistency with other federal 

policies. As you see here we mention guiding 

principles. The Guiding principle first came to the 

Executive Order signed by President Bush which was 

Executive Order 13423, if I'm remembering. I'm getting 

old so numbers are getting difficult for me to 

remember. And also in the new Executive Order signed 

by President Obama, 13514, they both referred to the 

guiding principle and that is the high performance and 

sustainable building guidance. And there was a 

memorandum of understanding, signed by most of Federal 

agencies basically to do what the guiding principle 

says. And because of that and also sustainability 

elements are very much covered, the same items, but 

again, our rule is more comprehensive and more expanded 

from the guiding principle. Certain things were not 
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there and then we have it in this rule. For example, 

siting certain coverage of the type of buildings which 

was not. We very closely worked with the working group 

that developed the guiding principle. And we worked 

and communicated with this working group to make sure 

that what we are writing is very much in line with the 

guiding principle. We didn't want to have more 

regulations for the stakeholders, you know, we see 

something in the Executive Order or something else in 

the Federal rule which would be going to the Code of 

Federal Regulations after we finish the final rule. 

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 Let me mention that any time we do a 

rulemaking of any type of rules which is mandated by 

Congress we are going through the proposal rule, final 

rule, and when the final rule is published in the 

Federal Register, that rule is going to go to the Code 

of Federal Regulations. What we have in the Code of 

Federal Regulations for Federal buildings are in two 

sections. Section 433 for commercial Federal 

regulations. And all the residential Federal 

regulations goes to section 435, for your information. 

 So it is very important that you look at those CFRs 

Part 433 for federal commercial and 435 for federal 

residential. Okay. 

 Proposed elements of sustainable design. 
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There are six elements that were covered excessively in 

the proposed rule that I would like to identify those 

one more time. 

 The first is integrated design. As you all 

know sustainable design for the buildings has so many 

elements. So it's very important, you know, to have 

the whole building design type principle and process to 

be applied for this type of design for the federal 

building sustainability. Also we employ commissioning 

practices. In other words, when the building is done 

the Federal agency or whoever is the owner, they need 

to make sure that it's going to follow up so that 

building is going to be performed as far as the 

elements are in case of sustainability and so also 30 

percent better than the building codes. Eventually 

when we get the reduction of fossil fuel and by FY2030 

per EISA 2007, all Federal buildings should be free of 

fossil fuel usage. And that is the rule that's coming 

up. I don't want to talk too much about that rule, even 

though it looks like I'm okay with the time. This 

fiscal year we have to reduce fossil fuel usage by 55 

percent and you go every five years to reduce it a few 

percentage more and then we get to FY2030 that we have 

zero percentage of the fossil fuel usage for the 

Federal buildings. 
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 And the baseline that you are probably very 

familiar with is the CBECS, that is Commercial Building 

Energy Consumption Survey, statistical data which is 

collected by another part of DOE, another office, EIA, 

Energy Information Administration, and the last or what 

the statute is referring to is a 2003 version of that. 

 And the 2007 is supposed to come out, but I think EIA 

is not keeping up with the schedule. So we are looking 

forward for CBECS 2003 revision. 

 Again in the RECS, that's for the residential 

Federal buildings, those are the baselines for 2003 and 

then we are basically reducing it from that baseline by 

so many percentages. 

 Okay. Energy performance. As I mentioned, 

we already have the requirements we published in 2007 

for Federal buildings, new federal buildings, should be 

30 percent better than the building codes and if is 

life cycle cost effective. 

 Water conservation, this is very much coming 

from the guiding principles. Use 20 percent less water 

indoor, 50 percent less outdoors. You are probably 

familiar this requirements. EPA administers that 

program. Water assessed products and then we have 

indices what the conservation of water should be and 

how to reflect that in the rule. And so this is what 
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we basically have on that. 

 The more elements are indoor environmental 

quality, very, very sensitive area. The American 

Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning 

Engineers Standard 62.1 which covers commercial 

buildings and 62.2 is for residential building. So 

these two documents developed by ASHRAE are covering 

the indoor air quality. 

 Another standard, ASHRAE Standard 55 and this 

is reflected in the RECs, the regulation part of our 

proposed rule, and it's covering the thermal comfort, 

also are related to the indoor air quality improvement 

of indoor air. 

 Okay. Environmental impact of material, 

recycle the vital based element in environmentally 

preferable products. That's something in a part of 

sustainability as you all know. And recycle or salvage 

50 percent of construction waste. 

 Siting. Siting is something that is not in 

the guiding principle. It is covered here. Also 

covered in some of the newer ASHRAE or ICC documents in 

their presentation. 

 So, again, central location, close to public 

transit and all that if possible is part of the 

sustainability elements for siting. 
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 Okay. Green Building Certification System, 

this is the other area which is covered in this notice 

of proposed rule. Okay. This rule does not require, 

as it says here, not underlined proposing to rate 

new/renovated buildings comply with a green building 

system. Okay. Also this proposes minimal system 

certification or specification, if Federal agencies 

choose to use green building system. Then we have very 

elaborate and extended explanation of what we have for 

the green building systems in the proposed rule. 

 Okay. If the agency decides to use the green 

building certification system, then within the system 

criteria is that verification by independent assessors 

and authorities or auditors. These are developed by a 

consensus based process to include a public comment 

phase and so forth and national recognition also 

includes periodic evaluation of the building, post 

occupancy, assessment and that sort. 

 Okay. In this notice of proposed rule, in 

the preamble part of the rule, depending on the areas, 

we are asking for comments from you, from all of you 

stakeholders to help us to go forward for drafting the 

final rule. And I'd like to identify one more time 

what we asked to comment. I went through the NOPR, 

David and I identified those comments, to make sure 
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that we are going to get comments from you related to 

areas we are asking for comments. 

 The major issues here that we are requesting 

input from you all is that cost increases versus 

improved sustainability. This is one area that I 

specifically would like to identify and get your 

comments on that. Should existing green building 

system be preapproved as meeting: Item 1-Acceptable 

system so that agencies can voluntarily use or Item 2- 

sustainable design requirements in the rule. 

 Okay. I've identified specific comment on 

the next two slides. 5 items on each slide, total of 

ten areas. These are all coming from the notice of 

proposed rulemaking that you have. And I just wanted 

to basically read those and emphasize the areas that 

are specifically mentioned and then ask for your 

comments. I read most of the statements that I 

received and you have mentioned some of the areas that 

I have listed here. 

 Okay. Let's go over these ten items. How to 

apply standard to leased buildings -- I'm just reading 

those and we will talk about it -- for level of control 

for federal agencies over construction of these 

buildings. That we would like to receive comments on. 

 Should there be a 3 percent or other limit on 
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total construction cost increases as a result of the 

rule. Should there be a threshold on life cycle cost 

increases as a result of the rule and if so, what 

threshold. 

 Let me mention at this point, you probably 

know that cost effectiveness for the federal building, 

what we are referring to here is in the Code of Federal 

Regulations Part 436 and that's the methodology of how 

the cost effectiveness should be evaluated. There are 

four methods and I'm not sure you are familiar with 

that, if you are not, please read that section of the 

Code of Federal Regulations 436. 

 We also have responsibility to revise, update 

that section. And the National Institute of Standards 

and Technology working very closely with us to update 

this section. Every year we update the discount rate 

and related areas. I see some heads going from up, 

down, so it means it looks like you know what I am 

referring to. 

 And going back to how should "major 

renovation" be defined? We proposed a definition for 

that because the statute says design sustainability 

also applies to the major renovation. So it is 

appropriate that we propose a definition for major 

renovation in this rule. 
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 And how should the requirement of 30 percent 

hot water demand via solar energy should be implemented 

if life cycle cost effective. 

 Okay. The other five items that I identified 

in my slide are here which, again, as I said, they are 

explained in the NOPR and I am just going over those to 

make sure that we are getting comments from everybody 

on those. 

 Should ASHRAE indoor air quality guide or 

other industry indoor air quality, IAQ, guide or 

standard be referenced in the rule? I'd like to hear 

that comment. 

 How should radon control be addressed in the 

rule for residential building and also for commercial 

building? Radon was popular with residential 

buildings. Now we're talking also about the commercial 

building. We would like to hear your comments on that. 

 We are covering commercial and residential in this 

rule. 

 And should the ozone depletion be addressed? 

I was reading the statements, it looks like there are 

some comments on that issue already in the statements 

from speakers. 

 Okay. Should actual energy use of building 

designed to this code be collected and reviewed? If 
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so, how should this data be used? 

 So these are the areas that I put on the 

slides so for you all to make sure that you comment on 

those. 

 And my last slide is that these are how your 

again, this is coming from the NOPR, but I am showing 

here again. Make sure that the title, the Docket 

number because all the comments are going to be entered 

into the Docket sheet for this rule. And all the 

comments, all the references, we have to have all that 

in one place in what we call it a Docket room. Then 

you all can come, if you are interested to read 

everything related to this rule. 

 So it is important that you refer to that 

number in your comments. 

 Also the RIN Number, Regulatory 

Identification Number. There are two ways that we 

identify or keep track of all the rulemaking that we 

do. 

 And, again, still I am the point of contact 

until the end of the comment period for this rule which 

is August 12th. And then later on as Richard Kidd 

mentioned, we are in the process of transferring some 

of the rule to the building technology and Margo Appel 

here is going to lead on that project. But for the 
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time being all the comments are going to come to me to 

my attention. 

 And those are the three ways that you can 

provide your comments to us. E-mail, your postal mail 

and your courier. 

 So all that is done. Again, comments 

deadline is midnight August 12th. And my goodness, I 

have until 10:30 -- (sound file interruption). 

 (Laughter.) 

 MR. NASSERI: And, again, as I said, you 

know, we would like to hear. Again, this is a 

gathering to hear your comments. We may be able to 

answer some of the questions, general counsel is here 

and technical issues, if there are issues that we can 

answer or basically the PNNL experts are here, myself, 

we will do that. But we are expecting that you tell 

us, comment about our proposed rule and then all your 

comments is going to go to the Docket -- everything 

today is going to be in this public meeting transcripts 

and that is going to be available soon. 

 Question? 

 MR. RABA: Yes, state your name, please? 

 MR. APPLE: My name is Todd Apple with 

Dupont. It was a procedural question with regard to 

the public comments and when would we be in a position 
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to read others' public comments? Would that be before 

August 12th? 

 MR. NASSERI: After. 

 MR. APPLE: We would not be able to see other 

public comments until after August 12th? 

 MR. NASSERI: After the close of the comment 

period we have all the comments basically and the 

docket. And what we do we are going to just say, you 

know, the commenter, the nature of the comment, 

organization, and so forth, then later on we are going 

to use that on how to proceed for the final rule. 

 Any other comments, any other questions? 

 MR. RABA: Yes, please. 

 MR. BLAKEY: Allen Blakey, the Vinyl 

Institute. I guess the answer to this is probably 

obvious, but in e-mailing comments, the subject line of 

an e-mail would only allow a few words. I guess you 

could use any of those three bullets you've got up 

there under the subject line of all correspondence in 

order to send in an e-mail? 

 MR. NASSERI: Uh-huh. 

 MR. BLAKEY: You don't have to put the whole 

thing on your subject line? 

 MR. NASSERI: Chris? 

 MR. CALAMITA: Chris Calamita, DOE. I think 
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if you had to limit to one, we would prefer maybe the 

RIN number. 

 MR. BLAKEY: The RIN Number. 

 MR. CALAMITA: That's the most precise. 

Yeah, I do appreciate that subject lines can have a 

limitation on them. So, yeah, the RIN Number would be 

preferred. 

 MR. BLAKEY: Thanks. 

 MR. NASSERI: Thank you very much, Chris. I 

almost went to law school, you know, in engineering. I 

didn't do that. So I'm not very comfortable when it 

comes this. So I have a great team of Chris Calamita 

and also (inaudible). 

 Any other questions? 

 (No response.) 

 MR. NASSERI: Great. Thanks a lot. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you, Cyrus. 

 (Pause.) 

 Stakeholder’s Statements 

 MR. RABA: We are trying to plan the next 

part of the day here. We are looking at the statements 

here and then person who wish to speak. I think that 

you might have some flow that would go very smoothly 

with this order that you've developed. 

 MR. NASSERI: What we did, I sent an e-mail 
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to the speakers, the ones that probably received it and 

then because of the nature and the number of speakers 

we were asked, you know, to basically have a three 

minute time to present your comments and then summarize 

your statements as much as you can and then that's what 

we'd like to go forward. So far we have received 

something like 14, 15 statements to be presented. I 

don't know how many other just came here with their 

statements. So that's what we would like to do to 

basically finish on time and give an opportunity to 

every person or organization to give us their comments. 

 Then I kind of made an arrangement -- the 

arrangement comes when I receive, you know, mostly 

first to speak so we kind of put number one, two, 

three. So if you notice in the agenda, we do not name 

anyone. We don't list the organization and all that. 

So we have it here. Jim is going to follow up that 

order to do this. 

 MR. RABA: And you may want to take some more 

time with your comments, but just basically a summary 

and certainly the written comments are most welcome 

afterward. And I think Cyrus would have maybe on order 

here. 

 Is the representative from the American 

Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning 
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Engineers here? Good to see you, sir. Would you like 

to use the podium? 

 MR. MONTGOMERY: No, I'm okay. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. 

 MR. MONTGOMERY: Thank you and welcome, 

everybody. My name is Ross Montgomery from ASHRAE. 

I'm a vice president there. I've come here today to 

talk to you about ASHRAE Standard 189.1 

 I want to make some brief statements about 

ASHRAE, obviously we were founded in 1894. We've been 

in business for many, many -- over 100 years and we are 

an international, non-profit, technical engineering 

society of over 52,000 members in over 140 countries. 

Our members represent the breadth of professionals 

involved in the built environment from consulting 

engineers, architects, contractors, to mechanical 

equipment representatives and a lot of academia. 

 We have a mission of advancing the arts and 

sciences of HVAC and are to serve humanity and promote 

a sustainable world and we do that through research, 

standards, writing, publishing, and continuing 

education. And we like to think of ourselves as the 

experts on energy and buildings and also indoor air 

quality. 

 We have a very rigorous standards development 
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process that we call -- we use what we call consensus, 

openness, balance, transparency, and in fact we are one 

of the ANSI audited designators here so that we can act 

-- 

 (Sound going in and out.) 

 MR. MONTGOMERY: -- self perform -- 

designations. 

 So in addressing today's NOPR ASHRAE strongly 

believes that our newly developed ASHRAE Standard 189.1 

will help meet many of the federal government's needs 

and guidelines on energy management, indoor air 

quality, et cetera. 

 As Cyrus went through his slides, we feel 

like 189.1 will meet and exceed many of those. 

 In recognition of the importance and broadbase of support for improved green building standards I 

am testifying here today with my colleague from the ICC 

who we worked with a lot on this ASHRAE standard 189. 

We developed this in collaboration with the 

Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, 

IESNA, and also USGBC in addition to the APMO and other 

organizations that we work with a lot. 

 We feel like ASHRAE Standard 189.1 is the 

first code intended, commercial green building standard 

in the United States. And we also want to service the 
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compliance path of the International Green Construction 

Code, IGCC, that's published by the ICC. 

 We have brought to you like seven pages of 

long comments and I'm just summarizing some of these 

here today. ASHRAE Standard 189.1 represents a 

revolutionary new step for building standards as it 

provides a long-needed green building foundation for 

those who strive to design, build, and operate green 

buildings. From site location to energy use to 

recycling this standard will set the foundation for 

green buildings through adoption into local codes. 

 It covers key topic areas very similar to 

green building rating systems which include site 

sustainability, water use efficiency, energy 

efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and the 

building's impact on the atmosphere, materials and 

resources. 

 The energy efficiency goal of ASHRAE Standard 

189 far exceeds that of ASHRAE Standard 90.1 2007, so 

it actually adds more energy efficiency ratings for 

that. And it basically provides minimum requirements 

for the siting, design and construction of high 

performance green buildings. For these reasons and 

about three pages more of those reasons that we cited 

in our statement we would like very much for the 
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Federal Energy Management Program to reference ASHRAE 

Standard 189.1 compliance option of the IGCC as a means 

of meeting the requirements of this rulemaking in Part 

433 as indicated as I move on through my testimony. 

 We have many, many, many pages of ideas in 

there which when I saw Cyrus go through his slides, 

they're right on point of a lot of the information 

Cyrus was hitting. I do want to touch on one 

particular thing that ASHRAE Standard 189 is intended 

to compliment green building rating systems. It's not 

intended to be a rating system nor do we want to 

compete with rating systems. We just want to 

compliment them and provide the technical information 

base for those to do well no matter which one you might 

pick. 

 Also ASHRAE has a building energy quotient, 

energy labeling program, that we think that may meet 

DOE's green building certification needs inasmuch as 

energy. The building EQ program that we currently have 

going on involves creating an asset rating, or an "asdesigned rating" next to an operational rating which is 

the actual measured value of the energy the building is 

using. So it not only does the asset which is the 

design side, but it also does the operational side 

after the building has been in operation for 12 to 18 
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months so you can compare the design to the actual 

operation and see how it's performing. So we think 

that's an important part of what DOE is interested for 

energy and we would just like to just show you that we 

have a pilot program that's doing well. It's soon to 

finish. We have a nice, bright, good-looking building 

label for DOE to consider. 

 So, in closing, ASHRAE Standard 189 

represents a major step forward as the first codeintended commercial, high performance green building 

standard in the United States. And we believe that 

ASHRAE 189.1 is poised to revolutionize the design, 

construction, and operation of green buildings. Many 

of the standards provisions are directly in line with 

DOE intent and the notice of today's rulemaking. They 

go hand-in-hand and it answers a whole lot of questions 

in that notice for proposed rulemaking. 

 We strongly encourage DOE to incorporate and 

reference, once again, the Standard 189.1 compliance 

option of the IGCC as well as other ASHRAE standards 

that I mentioned in my report including 90.1, 55, 62, 

100, 180, Guideline 0 for commissioning, and also the 

new indoor air quality guide that Cyrus mentioned in 

his slides. 

 So working together in a continued 
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partnership I am confident that we can succeed in 

meeting the nation's most pressing and environmental 

sustainability needs by improving the built 

environment. These are all an important part of 

ASHRAE's mission and vision as we go through our things 

that we want to work with DOE every step of the way. 

So I thank you very much for letting me speak to you 

here today and I'll be glad to answer any questions, or 

we can wait until the question answer period. 

 MR. NASSERI: Thank you. We can -- we are a 

little bit ahead of that. My presentation was half an 

hour short, so we have a little bit of time. Any 

comments for Ross related -- I have my question comes 

first. Is ASHRAE 189.1 for commercial buildings? 

 MR. MONTGOMERY: Yes. 

 MR. NASSERI: Is ASHRAE working on anything 

for the residential like 189.2? 

 MR. MONTGOMERY: Well, they have a 189.2, 

it's actually going towards hospitals, but we also will 

consider the residential side as time goes on. 

 MR. NASSERI: So ASHRAE is working towards 

the residential part of this? 

 MR. MONTGOMERY: Yes, we are talking about 

it. We don't have an actual TPS yet, you know, title, 

purpose, scope yet, but we are actually moving in that 
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direction. It's our natural progression. 

 MR. NASSERI: Any other comments for Ross? 

 (No response.) 

 MR. NASSERI: Good 

 MR. RABA: Well, thank you very much. 

 Would the representative from the 

International Code Council like to speak? 

 MR. WYLAND: Sure. Thank you. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. 

 MR. WYLAND: Excuse me. My name is Rick 

Weiland, I'm the chief executive officer for the 

International Code Council. I want to thank you for 

this opportunity to share a few words with you today. 

We are pleased to be able to provide some new 

information regarding the regulation of green 

construction involving tools backed by six preeminent 

national organizations that are now available to 

address federal goals as well as meet the needs of 

state and local governments. 

 To begin with, I just want to give you a 

little bit of background, for those of you who don't 

know anything about the International Code Council 

itself. We were established back in 1994 as a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing a single 

set of comprehensive and coordinated national model 
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construction codes. We are a membership organization 

dedicated to building safety, fire prevention, and 

energy conservation. And our international codes 

provide a state-of-the-art basis of safeguards for 

people at home, at school, and in the workplace. 

 Our model building codes benefit public 

safety and support the industry's need for one set of 

codes without regional limitations and are adopted in 

all 50 states including the District of Columbia. 

 We published the International Energy 

Conservation Code, the IECC, which is referenced as 

Cyrus mentioned in the Energy Independence and Security 

Act of 2007 and is a national requirement in Section 

410 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 

2009. The IECC in particular is used or adopted in 45 

states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin 

Islands. 

 Concerning the proposed rulemaking at hand, 

the ICC would like to offer just a few following 

comments and obviously we've submitted our written 

comments which are a lot more extensive than the two to 

three minutes I was allowed to talk regarding this. 

 Some of the terminology used in the 

legislation and in the proposed regulation does not 

reflect the most optimal blend of tools now in 
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existence to achieve Congressional intent. Instead, 

reflecting only options available at the time of 

drafting. In the absence of a model code to create a 

regulatory framework for green construction rating 

systems helped bring the discussion of green design 

into focus, setting the stage for a baseline set of 

codes while LEED and other systems function as an 

additional set of criteria beyond this codified 

baseline. 

 The gap between existing codes and rating 

systems has now been filled with the IGCC. The 

publication of the International Green Construction 

Code which includes ANSI's -- ASHRAE Standard 189.1 as 

an optional compliance path, there is now a new and 

comprehensive set of tools available in mandatory code 

language. The IGCC jointly sponsored by the American 

Institute of Architects, AIA, ASTM International, 

ASHRAE, the U.S. Green Building Council, and the 

Eliminating Engineering Society contains provisions 

that are well adapted to the federal government's need 

for an enforceable, verifiable, and adaptable document 

to facilitate the green and sustainable design, 

construction, and renovation of federal buildings. 

 In addition, the IGCC references the National 

Association of Home Builders (NAHB’s) and ICC's ANSI 
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National Green Building Standard for residential 

construction, the ICC 700 standard. 

 We are gratified that our colleagues at 

ASHRAE in collaboration with ICC have testified today 

and have joined us in this effort. In addition, the 

sponsorship of USGBC underscores the role of the IGCC 

as a baseline code and lead as an optional rating 

system as two bookends to creating a greener built 

environment. 

 Our colleagues at USGBC, the organization 

that originated the LEED standard, have publicly called 

for the adoption of the IGCC as well. 

 To recast the proposed rule in this new 

context we attempt to indicate throughout our written 

comments the places where the language of the proposed 

rule is either too restrictive or uses inappropriate or 

outdated definitions or terminology that could 

disqualify buildings otherwise meeting state-of-the-art 

requirements in this rapidly evolving area of green 

construction. We strongly encourage FEMP to reference 

the entire 2012 IGCC, including the ANSI ASHRAE 189 

Standard as a compliance path option, and including the 

ICC and HB-700 National Green Building Standard for 

residential structures as a means of meeting the 

requirements of this rulemaking in parts 433 and 435 as 
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reflected throughout these comments. 

 I want to thank you again for the opportunity 

to make this presentation along with our colleagues at 

ASHRAE and the other four organizations that have been 

a part of this developmental process of the IGCC. We 

encourage the Department of Energy to continue to 

support these ongoing sustainability efforts. Thank 

you. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. 

 MR. NASSERI: Thank you very much, Richard. 

Any comments? One or two comments for Richard 

concerning the IGCC and ICC documents? 

 (No response.) 

 MR. NASSERI: So we can proceed. 

 MR. RABA: Sunnovations. 

 MR. CARLSON: So I guess I'm first up from 

industry here. 

 My name is Matt Carlson, Chief Executive 

Officer of Sunnovations, Inc. in McLean, Virginia. I 

am pleased to have this opportunity to participate in 

this public hearing on this important issue. 

 In my and Sunnovations' view the proposed 

rule: one, represents a meaningful advancement in the 

cost and energy efficient construction practices of the 

federal government; two, recognizes the role that solar 
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water heating can play in reducing our nation's 

environmental footprint and increasing its energy 

independence; and three, will spur economic activity 

among the small and entrepreneurial business community 

that forms the core of the green building and solar hot 

water technology ecosystem. 

 Let me give you a brief summary about my 

company and why we're interested in this topic. To 

excerpt from Sunnovations' mission statement, "Solar 

powered hot water should be an obvious affordable 

alternative for all American homes and businesses and 

federal, state and local policy and regulation should 

encourage its use." While Sunnovations would be a 

potential beneficiary of the proposed rule, it clearly 

speaks to the heart of our company's mission. 

 Sunnovations was founded in 2008 by my 

colleague and company chief technology officer Arno Van 

Hauten. An engineer by training Arno sought to develop 

a solar hot water system that had all the attributes 

that were lacking in comparable solar hot water 

technologies in the United States market, 

affordability, simplicity, and standardization. Our 

system is particularly suited for smaller scale 

applications including single and multi-family 

residential, small office and commercial, as well as 
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remote or periodic use to locations where our system's 

no maintenance operation is especially valuable. 

 I want to specifically and particularly 

commend the Department on its recommendation to include 

military housing in the definition of federal 

buildings. This is an important development as the 

tens of thousands of units in our military housing 

stock represent a phenomenal opportunity to showcase 

solar hot water technology and mitigate energy costs at 

military facilities. Projects like FLS Energy's recent 

installation of solar hot water heating systems in 900 

homes at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina speak to the 

viability of such projects and represent a win/win for 

all parties involved. 

 The Department has also asked for comments on 

the definition of "major renovation." Sunnovations' 

observation there would be to encourage a definition 

that included multi-unit projects that are part of a 

single contract as opposed to setting a $2.5 million 

per building threshold. 

 I am also here as a representative of the 

nation's small business and entrepreneurial community 

which has a substantial stake in this rulemaking. 

Sunnovations is part of a new breed of entrepreneur 

that is pursuing both societal benefit and economic 
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opportunity. The overwhelming majority of U.S. 

domiciled companies that are involved in the solar 

thermal sector from vendors to installers to service 

providers generate less than $20 million in annual 

revenue. Indeed, most of the estimated 600 firms 

nationally that are active in solar hot water 

installation are owner-operated firms with revenues 

between $1 and 5 million. 

 That is the quick summary of my testimony. 

So thank you for your attention and your advocacy here. 

 MR. RABA: Well, thank you. Thank you very 

much. 

 MR. NASSERI: Great. Great. Any questions 

for Matt? 

 (No response.) 

 MR. RABA: Great. 

 MR. RABA: We will now hear from the Green 

Building Initiative. 

 MS. SHAFFER: Thank you. It's good to be 

here this morning. My name is Erin Shaffer and I am 

here representing the Green Building Initiative (GBI), 

a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Portland, 

Oregon. 

 GBI became the first green building 

organization to be accredited as a standards developing 
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organization through the American National Standards 

Institute. GBI also embarked on a process to establish 

Green Globes as the first ANSI standard for commercial 

building, an effort completed successfully in March of 

this year. 

 My comments today will focus on three key 

areas within the proposed rule. First, green building 

certification systems. GBI's Green Globes meets the 

requirements of the guiding principles and DOE's 

proposed rulemaking. GBI owns the rights to Green 

Globes in the United States and promotes Green Globes 

for new construction and Green Globes for continual 

improvement of existing buildings. Both systems are 

overseen by GBI and enable assessors and auditors to 

independently verify the criteria and measurement 

metrics of the system, are developed by a certification 

organization that provide an opportunity for public 

comment on the system and provide an opportunity for 

development and revision of the system through a 

consensus-based process and are nationally recognized 

within the building industry. 

 Green Globes is subject to periodic 

evaluation and assessment of the environmental and 

energy benefits that result under this rating system 

and includes a verification system for post-occupancy 
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assessment of the rating buildings to periodically 

demonstrate continued environmental and energy 

benefits. 

 GBI achieved recognition for being the only 

green building rating system for commercial buildings 

to take its new construction module through the ANSI 

process and have now the ANSI GBI 01/2010 a green 

building assessment protocol for commercial buildings 

as the first voluntary compliance standard that is 

directly relevant to DOE's request for comments on new 

voluntary consensus standards. The Green Globe system 

is a web-based green building tool that's used by more 

than 21 VA hospitals, a number of State Department 

buildings, including the first green globe certified 

building in Washington, D.C., at least 14 GSA buildings 

in two regions, by the Health and Human Services on a 

handful of buildings. It's also incorporated in 20 

state laws, has been recognized by a number of major 

insurance companies for preferential green building 

rates, and is used by major universities and 

corporations around the country. 

 The Green Globes tool for new construction 

and continual improvement of existing buildings have 

assisted federal agencies in working toward meeting the 

federal requirements outlined in the guiding 
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principles. The two tools work together to provide a 

continuum to assist design teams in setting of 

achievable performance goals and operations teams in 

continuously monitoring performance and making 

incremental improvements. 

 The Green Globes system recognizes progress 

in reducing energy consumption through use of the 

Energy Star Rating System that's incorporated into the 

tool and ASHRAE 90.1 benchmarks. 

 On water performance we note that the ANSI 

GBI standard contains a very advanced water section 

with stringent criteria allowing agencies to meet 

existing and new criteria as outlined in the proposed 

rule including specialty areas of water consumption. 

 GBI asked that DOE officially recognize green 

globes as a certification system that meets all of the 

criteria called for in the proposed rulemaking. 

 My second point regards focuses on levels of 

green building certification. Achieving two Green 

Globes allows agencies to meet federal requirements. 

The four levels of Green Globes are comparable to the 

four levels of LEED. GSA has designated LEED silver as 

meeting federal requirements. Federal agencies using 

Green Globes protocol should achieve two green globes 

for compliance with the federal agency mandates. 
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 Currently there are at least nine buildings 

around the country that are dual certified leading 

Green Globes and at least two of these are federal 

buildings. The resulting certification levels 

demonstrate the point that the systems and their four 

levels of certification are equivalent. 

 Finally, voluntary sustainable design 

standards, has already noted that the newest Green 

Globes tool, the ANSI GBI standard, was finalized and 

approved by ANSI in March of this year. It meets the 

requirements of the proposed rulemaking and it liked 

the current versions of Green Globes on which it was 

based and that are being used by federal agencies today 

to comply with the guiding principles and other federal 

requirements. 

 Green Globes provides important advantages to 

agencies and we request that DOE formally recognize GBI 

as Green Globes and its newest version the ANSI GBI 

standard noting that these represent voluntary tools 

and standards for agencies to use to comply with 

federal agency requirements. 

 One additional comment I want to make is with 

regard to DOE's statement that it's considering removal 

of green building certification systems if, for 

example, the actual building energy use exceed the 
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target energy use identified under the certification 

system. And GBI recommends that instead of removing a 

certification based on design standards that the 

federal agency should prioritize and emphasize the 

post-occupancy certification. Green Globes' continual 

improvement of existing building certification and 

recognizes actual building performance outcomes. 

 Thank you very much. I'd be happy to answer 

any questions. 

 MR. NASSERI: Thank you. Thank you very 

much. Any questions for Ms. Shaffer concerning green 

building initiatives? 

 Yes, one question. 

 MR. THOMPSON: This is Mike Thompson with 

Ingersoll Rand. It's my understanding that GBI is 

already listed as acceptable under the current 

standard? Do I recall reading that? And how are you 

looking to change what's currently in the standard or 

are you just supporting? 

 MS. SHAFFER: Yes. If you're talking about 

the proposed rulemaking GBI is not -- Green Globes is 

not listed either as one of the standards that has been 

under development in the standards section. The rule 

right now, I'm sure there are others that can talk 

about it in more detail, but talks about the criteria 
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that must be met by a certification system and level to 

then be recognized by DOE. And you would probably be 

best to explain it, but it sounds like DOE will then 

provide a list or develop a list of certification 

systems that will be approved and could be utilized by 

federal agencies. We are recognized in different 

agency's internal guidance as a tool that can be used 

by their agency. 

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 MR. THOMPSON: Okay. As a general comment as 

far as a manufacturer of air conditioning equipment is 

concerned, you know, we believe that the widest range 

of acceptance on green building standards should be 

allowed. We are very supportive of the USGBC as well 

as GBI and 189.1. They all have their own merits and 

more options from the government agencies and which 

standard they have to do I think is better for the 

industry and gives better flexibility towards meeting 

green building standards. So I would fully support all 

those standards from ASHRAE's to GBI's to USGBC's. 

 MR. CALAMITA: This is Chris Calamita with 

DOE. Just, again, to clarify, we did not propose a 

single rating system or multiple systems. But as Cyrus 

had commented one of the things we are requesting 

comment on is should the DOE then apply whatever 

criteria get finalized in the final rule and identify 
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systems that meet that criteria or leave it up to the 

agencies then to identify various systems. And there 

may be benefits or issues with either of those 

approaches and we would like to hear comment on that. 

 MR. NASSERI: As Chris mentioned, this is an 

area we would like to receive your comments and we ask 

specifically for comments where it says, this is what 

was proposed in this proposal. We are not identifying 

any program or any levels at this point. 

 Okay. Any other comments for -- 

 (No response.) 

 MR. NASSERI: Good. We are doing very well 

as far as time is concerned. 

 Jim. 

 MR. RABA: Rolling right along, in fact 

you're up again, sir. 

 MR. THOMPSON: Okay. Again, my name is Mike 

Thompson. I work for Ingersolll Rand and we are a 

global large manufacturer of air conditioning and 

refrigeration equipment and we produce equipment under 

the brand names of TRANE, ThermalKing and Huspin. And 

specifically what I want to address in this meeting is 

the discussion and the references to ozone depleting 

substances. My understanding and from reading the 

original Executive Orders, there's very little to no 
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mention of ozone depleting substances in those 

documents. However, it does trickle in to the DOE 

document that we're talking about on ozone depleting 

substances. And although it doesn't prohibit the use 

of ozone depleting substances, there are several 

references I've documented in my submissions. But 

primarily it says things like -- let's see, the use of 

ozone depleting compounds during and after construction 

must be eliminated where alternative environmentally 

preferable products are available, which we fully 

support. However, environmentally preferable is really 

not at all defined. 

 And when we look at air conditioning products 

and refrigerants there are three primary ways in which 

air conditioning will impact the environment. One is 

through the ozone depleting substances and the 

potential of the products, also the global warming 

potential of those products and also the energy 

efficiency 

 (break in sound system) 

 MR. THOMPSON: -- three of those aspects 

together. So if I try to -- if I pick on ozone 

depletion saying I need to eliminate that, I could be 

giving up on the global warming and energy efficiency 

side of things. 
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 In my point of view the U.S. Clean Air Act as 

followed by the guidelines of the Montreal Protocol 

already handle the reduction of ozone depleting 

substances and as such through the U.S. EPA and the 

U.S. Clean Air Act they have already eliminated the bad 

acting ozone depleting substances already found. And 

the ones that are left to use are really very, very 

minimally environmentally impactive regarding ozone 

depletion and have some other benefits regarding global 

warming. A specific example of that is the use of the 

refrigerant HCFCR123 for centrifugal chiller 

applications. This has a very, very minimal impact on 

the ozone layer. It does have some and it's allowed to 

be used until the year -- or able to be produced until 

the year 2030. But it also has the lowest global 

warming potential impact of any refrigerants today on 

HFCs and it also is the most efficient option today in 

large chiller plants by as much as 10 to 12 percent 

over the HFC alternatives. 

 So we need to strike this balance between how 

we treat ozone depletion and greenhouse gases, they're 

all important. 

 The proposed solution in this document, I 

think is very, very simple and that is the U.S. EPA 

through the U.S. Clean Air Act has the guidance to 
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eliminate ozone depleting substances. They've done 

their job and they're doing that well and we have 

agreed-upon dates that we are meeting in the industry 

and we're all happy to do that. And I don't think it 

would be in conflict with the Executive Order just to 

completely remove the language regarding ozone 

depleting substances and stick to greenhouse gases. 

And that way you would avoid any conflict between the 

two standards. The ozone depleting substances are 

already handled through U.S. law that has been passed 

by Congress and we can know them and rely on them and 

there won't be any conflict between having our 

customers decide what an environmentally superior 

alternative and having them come up with their own 

criteria on what is considered environmentally superior 

because that just gets us in a very, very difficult and 

complicated discussion that we don't need to go. So we 

very much encourage the use of lower greenhouse gas 

impacts on energy efficiency and low greenhouse gas 

compounds and these refrigerants. So we support that. 

 We support all the energy efficiency reductions put in 

here. I think that's a great direction to go, you 

know, improvements over 90.1, the standard. But I 

think getting into the foray of making decision on 

ozone depleting compounds is really walking into a 
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conflict between the U.S. Clean Air Act and what's 

being allowed to be used by the EPA and how good or bad 

those chemicals are. 

 So to sum up, my guideline here is to say 

really we ought to eliminate any references here to 

"ozone depleting compounds" because I think we are 

looking at potentially stepping on the toes and 

conflicting with the guidelines by the U.S. Clean Air 

Act and U.S. EPA. 

 Thank you. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. 

 MR. NASSERI: Great. Any comment for Mike? 

 (No response.) 

 MR. RABA: This might be a good time to take 

a break. I see nodding of heads, yes, in the 

affirmative. We made great progress in the morning. I 

think you earned a break. Let's come back, let's say, 

by that clock on the ten. Fifteen minutes. 

 (Whereupon, at 10:35 a.m., a brief recess was 

taken.) 

 MR. RABA: Through the course of the morning 

we've had some people arrive and if you have not 

already stated your name and affiliation, corporation, 

or company, or association you represent, please do so 

now. We have vertical mikes -- sitting mikes at either 
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side of the room back here or at the table as well too. 

 So, again, if you have not already introduced 

yourself to the group, please do so now. State your 

name and the organization that you represent. 

 MR. PARKER: Hi, I'm Graham Parker, Pacific 

Northwest National Lab. 

 MR. HANSON: Dane Hanson with the 

International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical 

Officials. 

 MS. ROGERS: Melissa Gallagher-Rogers at U.S. 

Green Building Council. 

 MR. ROSSOLO: I am Mark Rossolo with the 

Greenguard Environmental Institute. 

 MR. RABA: Great. Thank you. Welcome back. 

 Let's keep going with our speakers. The next 

one is the representative from the North American 

Coalition on Green Building. Please. 

 MR. HALL: Great. Thank you very much and 

good morning. My name is Bill Hall and I represent the 

North American Coalition of Green Buildings which 

consists of about 30 organizations with a material 

interest in the green building movement including the 

resilient floor covering institute. Our members 

manufacture sustainable and energy efficient products 

that will assist the federal government in meeting its 
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goals. 

 I'm going to summarize a more extensive 

coalition written statement we submitted on July 21st

and speak about two aspects of the DOE proposal. 

 First, we strongly support DOE's proposal to 

establish minimum criteria allowing a federal agency to 

choose any building certification system that meets 

their criteria. We agree with DOE's legal assessment 

that EISA does not require DOE to identify a specific 

commercially available green building rating system. 

Instead, as recognized by the 2009 GAO report it is 

essential provide federal agencies with the flexibility 

to choose any qualifying green building rating system 

in order to meet its obligations because one size does 

not fit all in this area. 

 For example, as Erin Shaffer pointed out, 

Green Globes places great emphasis on energy efficiency 

credits and the use of lifecycle assessment which 

conform with the principles required in the DOE's 

sustainable design standards. Likewise, the 

appropriate green building rating system for a federal 

health care facility may be different than for federal 

office buildings. Thus, in this area federal agencies 

need to have freedom of choice. 

 The federal government also must avoid 
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creating a monopoly for one commercially available 

rating system and encourage competition. By doing so 

DOE will reduce the costs of the federal green building 

program and encourage innovation changes to improve the 

effectiveness of the certification system. 

 And importantly the National Technology 

Transfer and Advancement Act requires federal agencies 

to use ANSI accredited rating systems like the NAHB, 

residential building system and Green Globes which 

utilized the rigorous and consensus ANSI process to 

develop them. 

 In the final rule in response to the question 

posed by DOE, we believe that DOE should recognize 

NAHB, Green Globes and whatever other rating systems 

they believe that meet the minimum criteria established 

in the rule. The criteria which, by the way, we 

support. For the reasons explained by Erin Shaffer of 

GBI, we believe that Green Globes and also NIHB meet 

that criteria. But by DOE making the determination in 

this final rule as to which rating systems meet the 

minimum criteria and not leaving it to each individual 

agency DOE will help streamline and accelerate the use 

of these rating systems by eliminating the need for 

each agency to make its own independent determination 

which could lead to inconsistent results. And 
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ultimately, again, I think it would further the 

environmental objectives here of streamlining and 

accelerating the use of rating systems by individual 

agencies. 

 In response to DOE's question about requiring 

the use of two additional criteria which is rating 

systems that undertake periodic evaluation of energy 

and environmental benefits as well as include postoccupancy verification that the rated buildings are 

actually meeting the environmental benefits in energy 

savings, we agree that those criteria should be 

included. It's very important to check and determine 

on a continuing basis whether the rating systems are 

living up to what they're advertised to be as well as 

the buildings themselves. However, we do have an issue 

with the suggestion that a green building certification 

system or certification for a building would be removed 

after one year if the building's energy use exceeds the 

targeted energy use. We feel that that time period is 

too short. Often it takes two years or more for 

optimal building performance and it would be better for 

DOE to actually use and allow the implementation of 

building system improvements as a result of the postoccupancy verification process. And then provide an 

adequate time for those improvements to work rather 
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than eliminating the building certification on the 

first sign of an issue. 

 The second part of the proposal I want to 

speak to is the proposed mandate for federal agencies 

to use environmentally preferred products, that is, 

product that have a lesser or reduced effect on human 

health and the environment over the lifecycle when 

compared with competing products. This is a laudable 

goal, but we question whether DOE should include a 

separate EPP selection requirement in this regulation 

which would be independent of, and in addition, it 

appears, to the use of qualifying building 

certification systems by agencies that choose to do so. 

 Our concern is that -- well, first of all 

qualifying green building rating system include credits 

for using EPP products that, for example, meet indoor 

air recyclability, biobased energy efficiency and other 

criteria. Thus, in our view, an independent EPP 

mandate that goes beyond the particular requirements in 

a certification system is not needed because again the 

certification systems already include EPP requirements 

that have gone through an extensive public comment and 

participation process. But, if DOE does decide to 

include a separate EPP requirement, it's absolutely 

essential that the selection process utilized, 
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lifecycle assessments that evaluate all relevant 

product attributes and do not disqualify a product 

based on a single attribute when not justified by the 

lifecycle assessment. 

 As you know this overall product evaluation 

process is complex. It requires the use of recognized 

and time-tested LCAs such as the B LCA that was 

developed by NIST and the Athena LCA. And, in fact, we 

propose that DOE consider establishing eligibility 

criteria for LCAs that would be used for any EPP 

selection process just like you've established the 

minimum criteria for the use of a qualifying green 

building and certification system. 

 Also the EPP or any EPP selection process 

should use standards that have been developed for 

evaluating the sustainability attributes of products 

and their manufacturers within a particular product 

category. A good example of this is the ANSI 

accredited NSF-332 which is that sustainability 

standard for resilient floor coverings. 

 Overall any EPP selection process or 

requirement needs to be scientifically sound, feasible, 

and maybe most importantly, well understood because of 

the price, performance, and availability impact of EPP 

selection on that vast federal government procurement 
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process. 

 The Coalition and RFCI intends to submit more 

detailed written comments by August 12th. Thank you 

for the opportunity to present this statement and I'm 

happy to answer any questions. 

 MR. NASSERI: Any questions for Bill? 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. May we hear from the 

Vinyl Institute? 

 MR. BLAKEY: Good morning. Thank you. 

 I'm Allen Blakey, Vice President of industry 

and government affairs for the Vinyl Institute which 

represents U.S. manufacturers of vinyl resin or vinyl 

plastic, the raw material for myriad, durable, and 

energy efficient building products such as window 

frames, roofing membranes, siding, flooring, and 

others. 

 I appreciate the opportunity to present this 

statement. We strongly support initiatives to reduce 

building impacts through efficient and sustainable 

design, construction and most important operations. We 

believe the Department of Energy is on the right track 

with these proposals. 

 We commend DOE in particular for proposing to 

harness the marketplace to drive sustainability in 

federal buildings. DOE rightly recognizes diverse 
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approaches to green building certification systems. 

 As has been noted, LEED, probably the best 

known -- is probably the best known commercial U.S. 

green building rating system. But Green Globes 

recently became the first to win ANSI accreditation for 

its assessment protocol for commercial buildings. 

 Encouraging diversity in standards and 

certification systems will provide flexibility for 

different agencies, priorities and needs and will speed 

the development of standards particular to different 

types of buildings. 

 Fostering competition among rating 

organizations will also stimulate development of more 

performance-based criteria and technologies. As the 

Department notes in the proposal not all green building 

ideas and practices are easily measurable or 

quantifiable. And we would add, not all necessarily 

result in improved performance. 

 When criteria and rating system and ecolabels are prescriptive, selective, narrowly focused, 

for example, single attribute or otherwise based on 

limited or biased evaluations they tend to serve narrow 

product interests rather than broader sustainability 

goals. Criteria that are based as much as possible on 

complete and balanced comparisons of impact among 
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competing products and materials and formed by a life 

cycle inventory data will produce the most measurable 

results and the most improved building performance. 

 The Vinyl Institute supports transparent 

inclusive standards that take into account the full 

lifecycle of the building. DOE will help by 

encouraging development and adoption of rating systems 

and programs that measurably improve whole building, 

full lifetime performance. 

 Thank you very much for this opportunity. 

And we're happy to provide answers to questions or more 

information. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. 

 MR. NASSERI: Thank you, Allen. Any 

questions? 

 (No response.) 

 MR. RABA: Following Flexible Vinyl Alliance. 

 MR. OTT: Thank you. Well, my comments will 

be brief, but certainly they're dovetail with my 

colleague's Allen Blakey from the Vinyl Institute and 

Bill Hall for the Coalition and Erin Shaffer from the 

Green Building Initiative. 

 I will start by saying, my name is Kevin Ott. 

 I am the coordinator of the coalition of industry 

interests known as the Flexible Vinyl Alliance or the 
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FVA. 

 The FVA was formed in 2009 as an independent, 

informal coalition of more than 85 business concerns 

including trade organizations, raw material suppliers, 

compounders, formulators, molders and fabricators 

representing the full flexible vinyl value chain. 

 In terms of where you might find flexible 

vinyl in a commercial or residential building, you find 

it on the roof, in the power conduits and cable 

coverings which speak to fire safety and performance. 

You'll find it under your feet in carpets and carpet 

backing. And basically flexible vinyl is in the 

furnishings. Your arm rests are made of flexible vinyl 

this morning. If you keep your elbows on your chair 

you're touching flexible vinyl products. So in summary 

the flexible vinyl is both ubiquitous and frankly a bit 

invisible, but it is everywhere in the commercial and 

residential building. 

 I'd like to comment today regarding the NOPR 

and the proposed approach for establishing sustainable 

design criteria. And, again, reiterating what my 

colleagues have said, the flexibility to choose from 

certification systems which meet the proposed DOE 

criteria is the key to fulfilling important 

sustainability and governmental objectives. Green 
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Globes has traditionally placed great emphasis on 

energy efficiency credits and the use of lifecycle 

assessments or LCA which conforms to the DOE's 

sustainable design principles. Alternatively the U.S. 

Green Building Council or USGBC has a program underway 

to incorporate LCA in LEED and has recently increased 

its emphasis on energy efficiency credits and 

greenhouse gas reductions, laudable goals. 

 GAO stated in its October 2009 report that, 

quote, "that agencies who wanted the flexibility to 

choose the green building rating system that best suits 

their needs" end of quote, thus giving federal agencies 

that flexibility to choose based on the needs of the 

project, the agency's priorities, the specifics of the 

qualifying certification system and other factors is 

essential. Both Green Globes and LEED have merit and 

both should be considered under the NOPR. 

 Second, on the matter of EPP or 

environmentally preferred products, DOE proposes to 

mandate that federal agencies use, quote, "products 

that have a lesser or reduced effect on human health 

and the environment over their lifecycle when compared 

with competing products that serve the same purpose" 

end of quote. 

 As DOE suggests, preferred products should be 
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selected in the context of legitimate lifecycle 

analysis. Building products and the materials from 

which they are fabricated are unique. Each brings 

opportunities, efficiencies and cost considerations 

among other features and benefits. LCA can help 

identify the most sustainable solution at the most 

effective cost both to the taxpayer who is ultimately 

the funder of federal building renovations and to the 

environment. 

 There ware well-known consensus standards for 

lifecycle assessment and these LCA tools should be used 

in the process of identifying preferred products. 

 The FVA thanks you for this opportunity and 

we will be submitting more detailed comments by August 

12th. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. 

 MR. NASSERI: Thank you, Kevin. Questions 

for Kevin? 

 (No response.) 

 MR. RABA: May we hear from the Sustainable 

Forestry Initiative. 

 MS. BLOCK: Good morning. My name is Nadine 

Block and I'm the senior director of Government 

Outreach at the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, SFI. 

 SFI is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit 
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organization and we are solely responsible for 

maintaining, overseeing, and improving the 

internationally recognized SFI program, a forest 

management certification program. We work with 

conservation groups, government agencies, communities, 

and the whole forest product supply chain to support 

responsible forest management and promote the use of 

wood products from sustainably managed forests. 

 We strongly support green building practices 

and government efforts to promote the use of energy 

efficient construction and appreciate the opportunity 

to comment on DOE's proposed rule. 

 So I would like to share some thoughts on the 

proposed rule specifically on the sections pertaining 

to green building certification systems. 

 I want to also mention that the SFI standard 

is recognized by multiple green building rating system 

and standards from around the globe including green 

globes, the NCGBI, Green Building Assessment Protocol 

for commercial buildings, Built Green Canada, the 

National Association of Home Builders, and the 

International Code Council's National Green Building 

Standard, Breen, CASBI, the ASHRAE 189.1 standard for 

the design of high performance green buildings, and the 

ICC international green construction code currently 
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under development. 

 In regards to the rule I want to state that 

we strongly support the approach taken by DOE in the 

proposed rule to identify minimum criteria for any 

green building rating system that a federal agency 

would choose to green rate a building. Choosing a 

single green building rating system is disadvantageous 

both to the federal government and the marketplace. It 

is not the government's role to choose winners and 

losers or to create a monopoly system. But rather to 

ensure the credibility of any system chosen by a 

federal agency to green rate a building. We feel that 

the statutory criteria proposed are appropriate to 

ensure that credibility. 

 Furthermore, the green building ratings field 

is a rapidly changing field with new developments every 

year. So instead of minimum criteria, it is far 

preferable to a list that reflects only a single point 

in time. 

 Finally, having multiple rating systems in 

the marketplace and spurring competition among rating 

systems is a worthwhile strategy as this competition 

has led to significant improvements among all rating 

systems. 

 I also wanted to mention that we strongly 
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support the DOE's intention of creating a list of green 

building rating systems that are determined to meet the 

criteria adopted in the rule and to make that list 

available to federal agencies as guidance. For that 

list we urge the Department to include the following 

green building rating systems that all meet the 

statutory criteria. Green globes and the ANSI GBI 

green building assessment protocol for commercial 

buildings developed by the green building initiative, 

the National Green Building Standard developed by the 

National Associate of Home Builders and the 

International Code Council and Built Green Canada. 

 All of these programs require independent 

assessments, have a balance in transparent process for 

developing their requirements and are nationally 

recognized. It's important to note that both the ANSI 

GBI, Green Building Assessment Protocol and the 

National Green Building Standard are approved by ANSI 

whose guidelines are among the world's most respected 

for the development of consensus standards and ensure a 

balanced transparent and inclusive process. 

 Furthermore, as Erin noted in her remarks 

from Green Building Initiative Green Globes has been 

recognized and used governmentwide. It is already 

being used in 35 federal agency buildings, is 
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recognized in 20 states and is recognized by the 

Council of State Governments, a bipartisan organization 

of state policymakers nationwide. 

 In addition to these programs meeting the DOE 

proposed criteria they all provide two additional 

important aspects; recognition of the positive 

environmental aspects of wood products, and recognition 

of all credible forest certification systems. 

 In conclusion, I again just want to stress 

our strong support for DOE's proposed minimum criteria 

for green building rating systems. It's a positive 

development and an appropriate role for government as 

federal agencies work to promote energy efficiency and 

a more sustainable environment. 

 Thank you. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. 

 MR. NASSERI: Thank you. Any questions? 

 (No response.) 

 MR. RABA: May we hear from the American Wood 

Council? 

 MR. GLOWINSKI: Thank you and good morning. 

I guess when you go towards the end you start to sound 

like you're just saying "me too" but I will try to be 

brief. 

 My name is Robert Glowinski. I am the 
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President of the American Wood Council. AWC is the 

voice of the North American Wood Products Industry. We 

represent a renewable construction resource that 

absorbs and sequesters carbon and employs over 180,000 

people. 

 I appreciate the opportunity to speak today. 

 The Council is a strong supporter of improving the 

environmental performance of our nation's building 

stock. We support the proposal's goal to ensure 

federal buildings become more energy efficient and 

incorporate sustainable design standards. 

 Wood buildings are easily insulated for 

optimal performance without a need to overcome thermal 

bridging and thermal mass energy loss. As a 

sustainable building material, wood requires less 

energy to produce, transport, construct, and maintain 

than alternatives. Notably, as a material principally 

manufactured using carbon neutral biomass energy and 

having the unique characteristic of sequestering 

carbon, wood can make significant contributions to 

reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

 Federal agency use of wood products can help 

federal buildings achieve energy efficiency and other 

applicable requirements in the proposal. 

 The Council supports the proposal's approach 
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to green building certification systems that are open, 

transparent, and performance based. DOE proposed three 

criteria, one with a subpart and is considering two 

more for green building rating systems that federal 

agencies may use. The DOE approach correctly 

recognizes that there are multiple green building 

rating systems currently available that additional 

systems may be developed and it is appropriate for 

government to recognize all compliant systems without 

favoring one over another. Setting objective criteria 

for systems to meet and determine which systems meet 

that criteria will provide federal agencies with the 

flexibility to use systems tailored to their particular 

needs. While not all green building rating systems 

appropriately recognize the full contribution of wood 

products to energy and environmental performance, there 

are several the meet the DOE proposed criteria and 

fully recognize the value and contribution of wood to 

superior environmental performance. 

 Expanding the use of wood products by federal 

agencies would certainly help the U.S. government come 

closer to achieving both its energy efficiency and its 

sustainability goals. I also would note that I agree 

with both Bill Hall and Nadine on DOE determining which 

systems meet the criteria listed. I believe that 
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having that kind of list would help to avoid any 

inconsistent assessment among and across agencies. 

 Thank you for the opportunity to discuss 

these issues and of course I'm available for any 

questions. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. 

 MR. NASSERI: Any questions? 

 (No response.) 

 MR. RABA: The Hardwood Federation. Is a 

representative from the Hardwood Federation here today? 

 We have a statement that we will have entered 

into the record. 

 Let's see, Mr. Jerry Schwartz, is he here? 

 PARTICIPANT: No, I spoke on behalf of the 

coalition. 

 MR. RABA: Okay. Thank you. 

 Charles Floyd? 

 (No response.) 

 MR. RABA: Okay. Jerry was representing the 

American Forest and Paper Association and Charles is 

with the Tall Grass Strategies. 

 Again, we'll have statements in the record 

from them too. But we will enter those as well. Thank 

you. 

 Moving along. Dupont Companies; is that 
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correct? 

 MR. APPLE: That's correct. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. 

 MR. APPLE: Good morning. My name is Todd 

Apple I'm with the Dupont Company. Dupont has been 

around since 1802 providing a variety of products and 

services that are science-based. 

 In this particular field Dupont has been 

providing building products and services through its 

building innovations business for over 30 years and 

building innovation is dedicated to reducing its 

environmental footprint and enabling zero net energy 

buildings that help engineers and designers and 

architects reach their energy management and 

performance-based design goals. 

 So I appreciate the opportunity to comment 

today on behalf of Dupont and we fully support DOE's 

efforts in this area to improve the energy efficiency 

and sustainability standards for new federal buildings. 

 We are convinced that the federal government can play 

a significant role in driving the entire building 

construction market towards more sustainable building 

practices. 

 I'll restrict my comments to two sections 

that were of particular interest to us today. With 
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regard to part 433.4 of Energy Efficient Performance 

Standards to optimize the energy performance of 

buildings. Cyrus noted in his morning comments that 

DOE did indeed issue a final rule back in December 

21st, 2007 that incorporated the energy efficient 

standards that were required by Section 305 of ECPA by 

incorporating ASHRAE 90.1 2004 version for commercial 

buildings and IECC 2004 for residential. However, a 

critical component of any energy optimizing strategy is 

the consideration of air leakage across the building 

envelope and its impact on a building's performance. 

 There's many references that discuss the 

impact of air leakage on HVAC energy use according to 

the Department of Energy, National Research Code 

Council Canada, NRCC and others, uncontrolled air 

movement through the building envelope can account for 

up to 50 percent of heating and a significant part of 

the cooling loads representing up to greater than 30 

percent of a building's annual HVAC costs. 

Unfortunately ASHRAE 90.1 2004 or 2007 versions have no 

quantitative air leakage rate requirements for the 

building envelope. 

 Now, the good news is ASHRAE 90.1 2010 does 

include requirements for continuous air barrier 

materials and assemblies. And we realize that DOE is 
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required to review and revise energy efficient 

requirements for fed buildings as the voluntary 

industry codes are updated and also recognize that DOE 

intends to address this issue in a separate rulemaking. 

 However, we just strongly recommend adopting the 

continuous air barrier requirements in ASHRAE 90.1 2010 

standard. 

 Furthermore, we believe that in order to have 

the greatest impact on the ultimate performance of the 

building in addition to a material and assemblies 

meeting of specifications it's imperative to test whole 

building air tightness. In our experience improper 

installation techniques and poor quality assurance 

throughout the construction process can result in very 

poor overall building performance with regard to air 

leakage. And therefore we are recommending that DOE 

consider adding an additional performance standard 

requirement for the whole building performance such as 

the United States Corps of Engineers air leakage 

requirements. USACE requires all new buildings to pass 

a blower door air leakage test where the results must 

be less than or equal to .25 cubic feet per minute per 

square foot of exterior envelope at a 75 Hascal 

pressure. 

 We also believe this is consistent with DOE's 
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proposed requirement that a federal agency demonstrate 

that the energy used at a minimum in the first year of 

a building's green building certification is consistent 

with the energy use identified as part of that process 

and consistent with -- this is also consistent with the 

guiding principles of an MOU that directs the federal 

agencies to establish a whole building performance 

target. 

 There's another section with regard to Part 

433.6 under the sustainable design principles for 

siting, design, and construction. Specifically around 

paragraph 5 and moisture control, we are concerned that 

potential moisture issues could develop in some default 

assemblies without more specific language around 

moisture control. 

 For example, the energy code requirement for 

continuous exterior installation could lead to wall 

assemblies with double vapor barriers or retarders and 

drastically reduce the assemblies' ability to manage 

incidental moisture intrusion. And so we would 

recommend that consideration be given to incorporate 

language that would prevent such unintended 

consequences. 

 And, finally, we do support DOE's goal 

requiring federal agencies to demonstrate the energy 
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use of a certified green building is indeed consistent 

with the energy targets that were identified under the 

green building certification program. And we also 

support the subsequent energy auditing requirement that 

can be periodically conducted throughout the building's 

useful life to ensure that the building maintains its 

performance level. 

 So that concludes -- we'll be filing 

additional comments before the August 12th deadline. 

So thank you for the opportunity to participate in the 

meeting and providing comments. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you very much, Todd. Any 

questions for Todd? 

 MR. NASSERI: I have some more explanation 

Todd brought up two or three issues that I would like 

to tell you (inaudible) (off mike) my presentation. 

One thing that was amended by Congress said that any 

time the referenced standard is updated we should visit 

those standards and if it's positive determination they 

should be raise the floor. What we did was we have 

that on the agenda to do that determination. That is 

for ASHRAE Standard 90.1 and this is going back to the 

air leakage issue. As I -- as you recall we are having 

(inaudible) 2004. ASHRAE every three years updates 
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their standard and the 2007 is already published and 

also 2010 will be available in next meeting of ASHRAE 

which would be in the winter in Las Vegas, a very good 

location. And so then as ICC is concerned, the same 

thing, the 2009 is already published and they're 

working on 2012 issue. What we have to do, we have to 

visit both of those baseline standards for federal 

buildings and we are going to do that. 

 One thing, as you mentioned, air leakage is 

mentioned in the 2010 ASHRAE. Also, I'm glad that you 

mentioned that we worked very closely with the -- and 

talk about air leakage as part of the FEMP 

responsibility to coordinate and work with other 

agencies and Alexander Juval and other people are 

working Seril, they work are very much again with Seril 

and once you have found the issue with the air leakage 

they are very much -- are doing that with other 

agencies as part of our responsibilities. We are 

considering all that. I just want to mention that. 

Okay. Very well. 

 MR. RABA: Let's proceed. U.S. Fuel Cell 

Council. 

 Say again, please? 

 PARTICIPANT: (Off mike.) 

 MR. RABA: Would you step to the microphone 
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please and state your name? 

 MS. HARKINS: I'm Erica Harkins for the U.S. 

Fuel Cell Council. Bob Rose was going to make a 

statement, but he's not able to attend today. 

 MR. RABA: Did you want to make it on his 

behalf? 

 MS. HARKINS: Oh, okay. 

 MR. RABA: You don't have to. 

 (Laughter.) 

 MS. HARKINS: Okay. I won't. 

 MR. RABA: We'll have this in the record. 

It's in the record. Thank you. Thanks for the 

information. 

 MR. NASSERI: Great. 

 I think, Jim, at this point, did anybody else 

that -- I don't know if we have received all the 

statements, anybody else that would like to make any 

presentation? It looks like we are ahead of our 

schedule very well. 

 MR. RABA: Well, that's good so far. And the 

floor is open. Anybody who would like to have a 

chance, opportunity, you would like to comment, raise 

your hand and have me recognize you. Yes, sir. 

 MR. HANSON: My name is Dane Hanson with the 

International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical 
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Officials. Just a bit of background about ourselves. 

We were founded in 1926. Currently we are the only 

trade associate developing plumbing codes which are -- 

that are accredited by the American National Standards 

Institute in the open consensus process. The 

membership of IAPMO is comprised of plumbing and 

mechanical inspectors, engineers, code officials, 

plumbing and mechanical contractors, water energy 

efficiency experts, manufacturers of plumbing and 

mechanical and building products. Currently our codes 

are adopted throughout the country and throughout the 

world and recently were adopted in the country of 

India. 

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 It is estimated now that approximately half 

the world's population is under IAPMO code now with the 

adoption of India. 

 But my purpose here today that I'm talking 

about is under the industry standards in the NOPR 

document it mentions several items and several 

standards out there and currently one that we felt that 

needs to be addressed and brought up is the -- it's 

called the International -- IAPMO's green plumbing and 

mechanical supplement. It's a code supplement which is 

a very aggressive green stretch code. 

 A little background about that, it wasn't 
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just an -- it was an open consensus process as well 

with input from ASHRAE, the American Rainwater 

Catchment Association, America for Water Efficiency, 

the Green Mechanical Council, Green Plumbers, The 

Plumbing Manufacture Institute, which are the 

manufacturers of the plumbing products, PHCC, World 

Plumbing Council, United Association of Plumbers which 

is about 380,000 plumber unions from across the 

country. These are all people who gave input into this 

code. And it does provide the first and only green 

plumbing supplemental out there today. So we really 

encourage that. 

 Just an estimate of Chapter 4, this code of 

this plumbing supplement by adopting the water -- 

indoor water use, you'll save between 20 and 30 percent 

of water usage just by those provisions in there which 

addresses rain water, gray water, and on and on. And 

we'll be providing written comments to further up on 

that. But I just wanted to get that out there. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. 

 MR. NASSERI: Thank you. 

 Have you sent that -- we recommend that you 

send that with your comments? 

 MR. HANSON: Yeah, we'll definitely. Yes. 

 MR. NASSERI: Any questions? 
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 MR. NASSERI: Anybody else? 

 MR. RABA: The floor is still open to 

anybody. Yes, sir. 

 MR. ROSSOLO: My name is Mark Rossolo. I'm 

with the Greenguard Environmental Institute. We'll be 

submitting comments that will reiterate everything I'm 

saying. But I just wanted to jump up really quick 

because there's been a couple of things said that I 

wanted to elaborate on. 

 To give you a quick background we've been 

involved in the indoor air quality business since 2001. 

 We certify products for the chemical emissions and we 

give them a rating. We also do work in the mold and 

moisture category. We have an ANSI standard that deals 

with that. The GEI MMS ANSI standard. We actually 

share Dupont's concern about the moisture category 

being very vague. So we would strongly encourage you 

to tighten that up a little bit. And in our comments 

we'll be giving you some specific guidelines to that. 

 I wanted to talk a little bit about the 

products that you are putting into these buildings. 

We've heard a lot of the representatives talk about 

lifecycle assessment and making sure that you are using 

an LCA which we very strongly support in terms of 
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overall sustainability. However, what I haven't heard 

of is anybody talking about the human health aspect of 

this and that's ensuring that these products you're 

putting in have a low chemical emissions. 

 The problems that we are seeing, and we have 

a number of studies of very highly rated LEED buildings 

out there that are showing this and it's not just LEED 

that's the problem, but there's also other green 

buildings that show this as well. They have very tight 

energy envelopes, very tight building envelopes and so 

what that means is your chemical emissions inside those 

buildings have a lot more effect on the human health 

than the buildings that weren't quite as sealed up, 

they weren't quite as energy efficient. 

 So it's very, very important that we're 

thinking about these chemical emissions that are coming 

off of these products, whether it's your insulation, 

your flooring, your ceiling tiles, whatever, I strongly 

encourage that that be some sort of -- I don't want to 

say prerequisite but very strongly looked at. 

 The problem with in LCA is you're weighing in 

a lot of different factors, where it came from, what 

it's used, the type of energy it did, and human health 

sometimes can get pushed to the bottom of that because 

it's not as fun to talk about or it doesn't have quite 
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the pay back. But for these buildings, particularly a 

federal building where you're setting precedent and 

you're showing the country what's important, making 

sure that there's that human aspect is very, very 

important. So I just wanted to say that. So thank you 

very much. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. That's helpful. 

 Anyone else, please? 

 MR. NASSERI: Let me say a few words before 

the next one. I think some of these issues in your air 

quality and things are somehow covered in ASHRAE 62.1 

and 60.2. Russ, do you confirm this? 

 MR. CARLSON: Yes. 

 MR. NASSERI: Yeah. So we do have some -- 

those are basically the reference standard for 

sustainability. So we do have. And then also 55 will 

basically cover some of the issues such as you were 

mentioning. 

 MR. ROSSOLO: Can I respond? 

 MR. Calamita: If I could also just add one 

more thing. If you take a look at the NOPR and the 

proposed reg text, we do have a section on low emitting 

materials. So I would direct you to that and if you 

have any specific comments on that provision as 

proposed, you are welcome to offer them now or through 
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your written comments. 

 MR. ROSSOLO: Yeah, we'll talk about the low 

emitting -- we had some very specific comments about 

that. Our really only concern we like that that's in 

there, it's a little general. It's so much of the 

moisture so it leads a lot open for interpretation. 

But we did notice that and we do know that there is 

some thought to that. 

 MR. RABA: Is there a response? You've been 

very patient, thank you. 

 MR. HALL: Oh, that's fine. We're way ahead 

of schedule, so that's the good news. 

 I just wanted to point out that each of the 

major green building rating systems that will meet the 

criteria also have credits for the use of low VOC 

materials such as for vinyl flooring there's a floor 

score program that certifies that products meet the 

California 1350 low VOC requirements and that's in 

Lane, it's in Green Globes, it's in NAHB. There's a 

similar requirement in program for carpet. So I think 

a lot of the VOC issues and indoor air quality issues 

are already being met by the rating systems that will 

be recognized as meeting the criteria. 

 And just to follow up on an earlier point, 

and for that reason, since all these rating systems 
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actually do incorporate EPP requirements, whether it's 

for indoor air or biobased energy efficiency that was 

the basis for at least my concern that adding a EPP 

requirement that goes beyond that is something that's 

not needed. Thank you. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. Ah, more hands go up. 

 Yes, sir, you're first and second over there. 

 MR. CARMEL: Dave Carmel with the 

International Code Council. Just a clarification or 

correction for the record. Mr. Hanson stated that 

IAPMO is the only ANSI accredited organization that 

publishes a plumbing code. The fact is, the 

International Code Council is accredited by ANSI. We 

published, I think, seven or eight ANSI accredited 

standards and we publish the International Plumbing 

Code which is used in over 40 states. Thanks. 

 MR. HANSON: But isn’t the International 

Plumbing Code not done through the ANSI accreditation 

process? 

 MR. CARMEL: And neither is the Green 

supplemental, as I understand it. 

 (Simultaneous conversation.) 

 MR. HANSON: But our uniform plumbing code 

which I was speaking about is. 

 MR. CARMEL: I didn't say it was. 
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 MR. HANSON: I know, but you just said that 

your International Plumbing Code is an ANSI accredited 

-- 

 MR. CARMEL: No, I did not. I corrected your 

statement, sir. 

 MR. RABA: That's Dan Hanson over here from 

IAPMO and -- 

 (Simultaneous conversation.) 

 MR. CARMEL: I was simply correcting your 

statement, you said, IAPMO is the only ANSI accredited 

organization -- 

 MR. HANSON: No, our plumbing code. 

 (Simultaneous conversation.) 

 MR. HANSON: Our plumbing code is the only 

ANSI accredited plumbing code. 

 MR. CARMEL: Well, that's not what you said. 

 MR. RABA: Okay. Thank you. Noted for the 

record. 

 Yes, in the back. Come on down. 

 MS. VAUGHAN: Good morning. And thank you. 

That is sort of spur or the moment, but my name is 

Ellen Vaughan and I'm with the Environmental and Energy 

Study Institute. I lead the buildings initiative for 

EESI. And I just wanted to make a couple points. We 

very much support the notice of proposed rulemaking 
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intention. And some of the comments that were made 

today, I think talked about performance attributes and 

just in general even though EESI our big focus is on 

sustainable development and reducing greenhouse gas 

emissions through energy efficiency, focus on renewable 

energy, so, of course we would love to see all building 

be net zero energy carbon neutral if possible. 

 But, we recognize that all performance 

attributes of a building are, you know, essential. If 

you have a green building that falls down in a wind 

storm, it's not very sustainable. So we really, really 

support this approach of holistic planning and looking 

at all attributes at the outset, security, 

accessibility, energy efficiency, productivity, 

functionality, you know, all those things, the high 

performance building caucus and coalition has a lot of 

information on this as does the whole building design 

guide that many agencies use. So that was one point. 

 Also so critical to use the integrated design 

process, integrated team approach and there's no magic 

bullet, there's no one product, no one rating system 

that's going to create a sustainable building. The 

only magic bullet might be that you use this integrated 

approach. 

 We've been disappointed to see that FEMP has 
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eliminated most of its training on whole building 

design and so we are hopeful that that could be a 

focus. 

 And, finally, just wanted to recognize the 

importance again of thinking about how all of these 

things are connected. And I know that, excuse me, DOE 

is addressing the fossil fuel reduction requirements in 

EISA separately, but I just really encourage that these 

things are thought of together. Obviously need to 

think about what renewable energy requirements will be 

needed, excuse me, to reduce energy -- fossil fuel 

energy in sustainable buildings. So thanks so much. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. 

 MR. NASSERI: Let me, you mentioned the whole 

building design training. We do work with whole 

building design very much in their meetings. And we 

basically FEMP appropriated some funding for that 

activity of this whole building design. And if you 

think FEMP should focus more on training on that, we 

kind of leave it to them, you know, in supporting their 

activities for that. 

 MS. ROGERS: Hi. I'm Melissa GallagherRogers. I'm from the U.S. Green Building Council. I 

just wanted to echo some of the comments that were made 

earlier today about focus on building performance. And 
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mention that in addition to the LEED for new 

construction standards which are widely used we have 

about 3,000 projects from the federal government in the 

queue right now. There is a LEED for existing 

buildings operations and maintenance rating system and 

then in addition in terms of focusing on building 

performance after certification we have a building 

performance partnership that allows for tracking and 

management of data and looking at building performance. 

 So certainly we will provide additional written 

comments, but I just wanted to echo that support. It's 

really critically important that we all focus on the 

building performance post-certification. So, thank 

you. 

 MR. RABA: Okay. Thank you. Further 

volunteers to speak. 

 MR. NASSERI: Jim, I recommend -- it looks 

like we are really ahead of our schedule. If we can go 

to that session on question and answer and then if 

possible we basically can adjourn before our scheduled 

12:30. That's my recommendation. 

 MR. RABA: What a motivational speech that 

is. 

 (Laughter.) 

 MR. RABA: Well, that's a good point though. 
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 We've heard some great comment, some great statements, 

a lot of good interest, a lot of good togetherness if I 

may say that on these matters. It's all positive right 

here. And I think we would like to respond, and by 

popular demand probably ask for going back and 

revisiting the highlighted questions that were in the 

last three or four slides of your handout. So while I 

play with this to make it work, please go back and take 

a look at your handout where it began, what are your 

comments? And think first to direct some of your 

thoughts, again, refocus them if you will, on the first 

one, how do balance cost increases versus improved 

sustainability. Cost increases improved 

sustainability. Any thoughts directed on that 

question? 

 (Pause.) 

 MR. RABA: Going once. Right there. 

 MR. BARRY: Hi, my name is John Barry. I 

represent the International Union of Operating 

Engineers National Training Fund. We represent a group 

of union stationary engineers in the United States and 

Canada that are 120,000 strong, and the people that 

most often operate and maintain commercial facilities, 

including this one, and a lot of other government 

facilities. I have a couple questions. One is with 
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regard to how to balance cost increases and improve 

sustainability. All the plans, the best made plans are 

normally laid to waste by lack of execution. The 

people that are normally tasked with making sure that 

these facilities operate and are maintained correctly 

are stationary engineers. One of the things that I 

don't see in this particular section and in the 

coverage of existing buildings is a way to make sure 

that it happens. And including stationary engineers is 

always an afterthought because they're always there 

after the building is built. They're the people that 

are most likely to be able to deliver the thoughts, 

ideas, and make the execution of the plan work. 

 So, my question would be, have you considered 

including some provision in this and commissioning 

processes that would enable there to be somebody like a 

stationary engineer that has the on-the-ground, reallife experience, somebody like myself, I'm a licensed 

engineer in the District of Columbia. My career has 

been made off of running facilities like this and 

making sure they're right. After they're designed and 

they're put in place, it's kind of a done deal. It's 

then my job to make it work. So of all of the people 

that I represent, and all of the folks that can have an 

impact on this program being efficient, you know, how 
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is the energy auditing going to be done that Todd from 

Dupont talked about? How are the requirements that 

you're, you know, putting into place going to be made 

whole? And, you know, the federal government, if they 

have sustainable building policy how are you actually 

going to make sure that it's implemented and recorded? 

 So balancing costs versus improved sustainability a 

lot of times, and I'll speak specifically to that, I've 

experienced -- I've actually brought buildings out of 

the ground from pure ground all the way to the top, 

read the specification, made sure that they were put in 

place, did the punch list and saw how the costs would 

drive sustainability and how things are taken out of 

the building design because it costs too much. 

 Going forward the federal government has a 

deficit as do most of the states and everybody else 

known to man. In this economy we're in a poor place to 

be demanding that we have highly efficient facilities 

when we have champagne taste and Budweiser wallet. 

You're not going to make it happen. 

 In a lot of cases the proof of the pudding is 

in the tasting, how well do we do with what we do? 

Case in point, we're standing in a room that I don't 

consider to be extremely comfortable. No disrespect. 

 (Laughter.) 
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 MR. BARRY: There's a pneumatic thermostat on 

that wall in the age of electronics, there are no 

return vents in here and there is definitely a lot of 

ways to make this place operate much more efficiently 

as are all facilities. So my question would be, who is 

going to implement the plan? What are going to be the 

checks and balances to make sure that they happen? And 

how are we going to implement and provide a strategy 

that will enable us to do the things that you want to 

do without it being 100 percent cash input? Because 

there are a lot of ways to make existing buildings 

perform without going broke. Thank you. 

 MR. RABA: Most helpful. Thank you very 

much. 

 MR. CALAMITA: This is Chris Calamita again 

with DOE. If I could just respond broadly to some of 

those points. As Richard Kidd had indicated early on, 

this is one component of multiple activities that we're 

pursuing both under Executive Order and under statute. 

 So this is to set up the design criteria. Section 432 

of EISA directed the federal government to set up a 

commissioning and recommissioning process and then also 

identify energy managers for buildings and has an 

auditing requirement. So we're looking to that as the 

complement to what we're doing here. 
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 MR. BARRY: To redirect real quick. One 

thing, and that's great stuff. We did see that. One 

of the things that I did want to say was that in the 

design process it's very unusual to have people at my 

level part of that process. But it's something that 

you may want to consider because it's not been done. I 

know it can be done. I know that this process can be 

done more efficiently if you have the people who are 

actually going to be in the building present during 

that process and part of this process. So there are a 

lot of -- there's a lot of good that can be had there 

and it's not necessarily something that has to be done 

for everything, but there's a lot of input you can get 

from people at the craft level that can help you make 

your buildings from the design phase more efficient. 

 Thank you. 

 MR. RABA: Over here, first. 

 MR. MONTGOMERY: Hang on, I've got another 

answer for you. 

 MR. RABA: Yes, please. 

 MR. MONTGOMERY: I've got another answer for 

you. Ross Montgomery ASHRAE. From the ASHRAE 

perspective part of our comments we're asking to have a 

lot of our other standards included in this Part 433, 

one being guideline zero which is on commissioning and 
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it involves the maintenance and operation personnel 

from the get-go, from the beginning to the end. And 

then also another standard that we publish is the 

maintenance and operation standard 180 which takes the 

building after it's built and then properly maintains 

and operates it for its life. So we're asking for 

those two things to be included. So hopefully we can 

help you there. 

 MR. RABA: Great. Now here. Thank you. 

 MS. SHAFFER: Erin Shaffer, Green Building 

Initiative. I just want to add and support the 

comments that were made. In fact the Green Globes 

systems for new construction, major renovation, and our 

existing building tools provide within the project 

management section an entity gets credit or gets points 

for setting up and having those kinds of ongoing 

meetings with the key players, the engineers, the 

unions, the tenants and whatnot so that they are 

involved in the process, just as you stated, from the 

early stages then they can provide significant input to 

the design and then get to the point where there's 

commissioning and actual operations of the building 

because we think that's a critical component of having 

a building that actually operates to the design specs. 

 MR. RABA: Great. Thank you. Yes, sir. 
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 MR. APPLE: I would just add one comment. My 

name is Todd Apple with Dupont. We were recently 

involved with a workshop that was conducted jointly by 

AIA, American Institute of Architects and the General 

Services Administration. Kevin Campshore's 

organization on the high performance federal buildings. 

 On this issue specifically around commissioning, 

recommissioning, and persistent commissioning, if you 

will, how and he had representatives from every agency 

in the federal government with regard to facility 

managers and working on this longer-term solution, how 

do you make these changes stick over the long term in 

the operation. So there is, I guess, good news that 

there is work going on inside the agencies that 

identify this as a gap that we need to close. 

 MR. RABA: Great. Thank you. And you'll be 

submitting written comments; yes? 

 MR. APPLE: Yes. 

 MR. RABA: Great. Thank you. 

 MR. BARRY: Okay. Next one? Should existing 

green building systems be preapproved as meeting 

acceptable certification systems that agencies can 

voluntarily use; and two, sustainable design 

requirements in the rule. Thoughts and comments on 

that area. In the back, please? 
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 MS. BLOCK: Nadine Block with the Sustainable 

Forestry Initiative. We did address that question in 

our statement, but I actually did just want to add one 

additional point which is we do support, as I 

mentioned, a list that would approve green building 

rating systems that meet the criteria laid out in the 

rule. But as I noted, this is a rapidly changing arena 

and I would encourage -- I don't believe I saw in the 

rule any mention of how that would potentially be 

updated in the future. So I would encourage the agency 

to consider how that can be continually reviewed and 

updated as needed as there may be new standards or 

rating systems that come into the market that would be 

appropriate for agencies to consider as well. 

 MR. RABA: Great. Thank you. Anybody else? 

 MR. HALL: Bill Hall, just for the record 

just to reiterate that the North American Building 

Coalition supports DOE's making that determination in 

the final rule and I know that the Wood Council did as 

well. 

 MR. RABA: I see nodding of heads in the 

affirmative. Okay. Next one. 

 How to apply standards leased to buildings. 

This one here, does anyone have any comments on this 

particular one here? 
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 (No response.) 

 MR. RABA: Three percent or other limit on 

total construction costs increase the rule. 

 Correctional lifecycle on lifecycle cost 

increases? 

 Am I going to fast? 

 Too slow? 

 PARTICIPANT: Too fast. 

 MR. RABA: All right. Thank you for stepping 

up. 

 MR. COLKER: Hi, Ryan Colker, National 

Institute of Building Sciences. To get to the 3 

percent or other limit on total construction cost 

increases, I think that there's probably some 

arbitrariness, number one, to that 3 percent. And then 

second to that, total first costs should not be a 

consideration in making decisions on construction. It 

should be based off of lifecycle costs and other 

requirements that are mentioned within the proposed 

rule. Thanks. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. Of course. Thank you. 

 Others? 

 (No response.) 

 MR. RABA: Okay. Then, first of all 

lifecycle cost increases? Comments, thoughts? 
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 How should "major renovation" be defined? 

 I presume written comments we'll hear from 

you there. 

 How should the requirement for 30 percent hot 

water demand be provided by solar? If a lifecycle cost 

effective? 

 Yes, sir. 

 MR. CARLSON: This is Matt Carlson from 

Sunnovations. It looks like I'm the only solar hot 

water person in the room, so maybe I should comment. 

But really my question was about the question which is, 

is it -- when you're asking how it should be 

implemented, is it in the measurement of what the load 

will be or the post-construction measurement of whether 

that 30 percent requirement is being met? Because 

those are two different questions, I guess. 

 That the load estimation is a relatively 

straightforward one. For residential applications 

there are studies including one by the Florida Solar 

Energy Center that has done some modeling on proposed 

load or the load in a residence based on location and 

number of occupants, solar energy, et cetera. And then 

on the commercial side California has a substantial 

solar hot water program where they've done a lot of 

work. So that may be one program that you may wish to 
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look at for some guidance. 

 On the back end in terms of measuring whether 

the 30 percent standard has been met, the solar rating 

certification corporation, the SRCC which does get 

some, I must say, very modest funding from the Energy 

Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) is the standards 

and certification organization for the solar thermal 

industry and it does provide guidance as to what the 

estimated output for a given system will be. And 

that's an OG300, they are OG300 rating and 

certification program. 

 MR. RABA: Okay. 

 MR. COOK: Jim, if it's all right, this is 

Keith Cook from Phillips Lighting representing NEMA. 

We would like to comment on a few of the previous 

items. On the first one, NEMA does not agree with the 

conclusion that leased buildings should be limited to 

only those where the agency has significant design 

control. We feel that EISA 2007 set the goal of 

achieving net zero commercial buildings for all new 

buildings by 2030. 

 Half of the commercial buildings stocked by 

2040 and all commercial buildings by 2050. If we are 

to achieve this goal the federal government should 

require that any space it leases, not just new leased 
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buildings, meet a minimum level of energy efficiency. 

 The federal government has to set the 

direction by incorporating all space it utilizes into 

energy considerations. At the very least every space, 

building utilized by the federal government should meet 

ASHRAE 90.1 2004 for other than residential and ICC 

energy conservation code 2006 for residential. 

 On the second and third bullets we would like 

to comment that the reference to the 3 percent first 

cost limitation should also be removed. And NEMA does 

not agree that the 3 percent figure should be added to 

the extent practicable language. Evaluations should be 

based on the increased cost compared to the energy of 

other cost savings over time. When standards such as 

ASHRAE 90.1 were developed the cost justification are 

already taken into account. The objective is to ensure 

that the total lifecycle of the building is included as 

part of the overall cost evaluation. In many cases 

more than the 3 percent increased costs can easily be 

recovered by the energy savings over time. 

 And, on the major renovations. NEMA agrees 

that the 25 percent threshold for major renovations is 

suitable. We would also like to note that the 

renovations could result from any situation including 

new space, changes in use of the building, or 
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renovations to take advantage of increased operating 

efficiencies. Thank you. 

 MR. RABA: Thank you. I'll ease up for a 

moment to look the over again if there's anybody who 

would like to comment or questions on these items of 

further remarks? 

 Any? 

 (No response.) 

 MR. RABA: Should ASHRAE indoor air quality 

guide or other industry IAQ guides or standards be 

referenced in the rule? 

 Yes, please, up there first and then over 

here at the table second. 

 MR. ROSSOLO: Mark Rossolo from Greenguard 

Environmental Institute again. I'll just -- I think I 

already pretty much said my piece. You can understand 

why I'm up here. We are very favorable and supportive 

of the ASHRAE indoor air quality guide. In fact, 

Greenguard certification is listed, I believe, in their 

reference section. I would strongly urge you to look 

at some of the other certifications out there for IAQ. 

 Greenguard obviously being, we feel, the most 

stringent. There's also industry-based ones such as 

the one that Bill brought up for Floor Score that we 

would encourage you to look at as well. 
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 So we do think that certifications in 

addition to the IAQ guidelines would be a good idea 

specifically when you're talking chemical emissions and 

we'll elaborate that. But I just wanted to reiterate 

that point. 

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 MR. RABA: Okay. Yes, please. 

 MR. MONTGOMERY: Ross Montgomery, ASHRAE. 

I'm obviously going to speak in support of the ASHRAE 

IAQ guide. But I want to remind everybody that it was 

a joint effort of ASHRAE, AIA, BOMA, USEPA, SMCNA and 

USGBC, so it wasn't just ASHRAE, it had lots of other 

people involved. 

 MR. RABA: Good point. I'm sure they 

appreciate it. Yes, come back to us. 

 MR. BARRY: John Barry from the Operating 

Engineers. We submitted comments on this particular 

one. The International Union of Operating Engineers 

started an indoor air quality program in 1993 and has 

been doing that training of engineers. We have now 

reached a threshold where we've trained stationary 

engineers with responsibilities of over two billion 

square feet of office or commercial space in the United 

States. And we recently released an indoor air quality 

training guide as did ASHRAE and it was in conjunction 

with the U.S. EPA. So we had said in our comments that 
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if that was going to be recommended it should be used 

in conjunction with the IAQ guide for stationary 

engineers that operate and maintain these facilities. 

 MR. HALL: Bill Hall again. And just to 

reiterate what I said earlier, and in support of what's 

been said since, we do believe DOE should reference 

appropriate industry IAQ guides. And the starting 

point as to where to find them should be in the rating 

systems that meet the minimum criteria so Fourscore 

would be there, the carpet standard would be there, 

ASHRAE is there, and a host of others. Thank you. 

 MR. RABA: Good point. Anyone else, please? 

 Radon. How should radon be addressed in 

commercial and residential buildings? Yes, please. 

 MS. SHAFFER: Erin Shaffer, GBI, that's 

actually an issue that came up a number of times as our 

Green Globes was going through the ANSI process and 

we'll be submitting comments on radon in commercial 

buildings in our more complete written comments. 

 MR. RABA: That's important. Thank you. 

 Others, please? 

 (No response.) 

 MR. RABA: How should construction waste be 

addressed? 

 (No response.) 
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 MR. RABA: Do you need to give it some 

thought? Okay. We can go back if we want to. 

 Should ozone depletion -- 

 MR. NASSERI: Depletion. 

 MR. RABA: Should ozone depletion be 

addressed and if so, how? 

 Ozone depletion. 

 Think about it. 

 Should actual energy use in buildings be 

designed to this code to be collected and reviewed and 

if so, how should this data be used? There's a lot of 

thought going on out there. 

 Yes, please. 

 MR. MONTGOMERY: Ross Montgomery, ASHRAE. 

Well, obviously if that energy data is collected it 

would be used as a part of the CBEC's database which 

has been going on for years and years and years. So it 

would be a good idea. 

 MR. RABA: And CBEC's is? 

 (Simultaneous conversation.) 

 MR. RABA: Commercial Building Energy Codes. 

 Thanks. Thank you. 

 Yes, please. 

 MR. COOK: Keith Cook representing NEMA. 

NEMA believes that the reviewing energy use after the 
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first year is an extremely important consideration that 

must be included in the final regulation. We note that 

this is consistent with the existing major programs 

such as ENERGY STAR for buildings where 12 months of 

operational data is required before the rating can be 

obtained. Our experience shows that most buildings, 

even those designed using suitable -- excuse me 

sustainable design principles do not achieve their 

expected energy levels without continuous lifecycle 

management. We would further recommend that the DOE 

include rules that require reviews at four-year 

intervals as well. Improper adjustments to the system 

by users as well as improper maintenance can have 

significant impacts on the energy performance and can 

occur at any time during the life of the building. 

 In addition, DOE should consider language 

that will require that appropriate steps will be taken 

to correct any problems found during the reviews. 

Thank you. 

 MR. RABA: Yes, go ahead. 

 MS. SHAFFER: Erin Shaffer, GBI. I want to 

comment on that because in fact one of the tools that I 

mentioned that we have that works in conjunction with 

our new construction tool is our continual improvement 

of existing building tool. It incorporates the ENERGY 
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 STAR Portfolio Manager within it. It does 12 months 

of operational data. So it calls for utility data, so 

you've got energy and water. So we would agree that 

use of actual energy data is great to incorporate, 

track and incorporated into the CBEC database, but we 

would say going beyond just energy to incorporate 

water, environmental management, the kinds of things 

that are in a rating system that looks at the whole 

building and all of the operation and maintenance 

performance that actually is relevant. It's not just 

energy. 

 MR. RABA: Good point. Thank you. Yes, 

please. 

 MR. APPLE: Todd Apple with Dupont. Just 

adding, we believe that in energy advance metering, 

requirements of federal buildings, I believe this is 

statutory that is has to be for federal buildings for 

this energy use to be collected. Is my understanding 

correct? By Executive Order. 

 MR. CALAMITA: Chris Calamita, DOE. You're 

correct there is a statutory requirement for advance 

meters to the extent practicable. And as I said, 

there's a number of auditing requirements both through 

Executive Order and through statute. 

 MR. RABA: So, it's been great so far. 
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 MR. NASSERI: Go over your closing remarks. 

 MR. RABA: Well, I'll tell you what, you've 

been great today. We've covered a lot of ground, a lot 

of good things today to take back for consideration. 

We are still away ahead of schedule to your credit. 

And I think you deserve a round of applause. So give 

yourselves a round of applause. 

 (Applause.) 

 MR. RABA: If you are interested, the coffee 

shop downstairs, Dunkin Donuts and Subway or the 

cafeteria west end. Brenda has some evaluations to 

hand out on the table. They're in the back of the 

packets. Before you leave, please give us your 

evaluation comments of today's public meeting. And I 

presume each has given Brenda a business card for your 

attendance today to ensure that you are kept informed 

of future rulemakings. Please. 

 Thank you very much on behalf of the 

Department of Energy. Cyrus, conclude 

 Closing Remarks 

 MR. NASSERI: Okay. Thank you very much. 

Again, we are looking forward to seeing your written 

comments. And definitely the one that Jim was reading 

to you was not enough time for you, you know, to really 

give us any comments, we expect to see your written 
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comments with the errors that I identified specifically 

and all that and your comments. We really appreciate 

your participation and your efforts, you know, to help 

us come up with a good final rule on sustainability. 

Thanks a lot. 

 (Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the meeting was 

concluded.) 

 
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REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE

 This is to certify that the attached proceedings 

before: 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

In the Matter of: 

SUSTAINABLE DESIGN STANDARDS 

FOR FEDERAL BUILDINGS 

 Were held as herein appears and that this is the 

original transcript thereof for the file of the 

Department, Commission, Board, Administrative Law Judge 

or the Agency. 

 Further, I am neither counsel for or related to any 

party to the above proceedings. 

 

Wendy Greene 

 Official Reporter 

Dated: August 18, 2010