As the federal government’s landlord, GSA is responsible for, among other things, designing, building, and maintaining its portfolio of approximately 9,000 federally owned or leased buildings and courthouses. According to the AOUSC, 424 of these buildings have a judicial presence ranging from small court spaces that provide judicial services on a part-time basis to large courthouse buildings in major urban areas. To address the Recovery Act’s obligation deadlines, environmental requirements, and large influx of funding, GSA adapted its capital investment process to include a newly created national program management office (PMO) in April 2009 to oversee its Recovery Act program. GSA established the PMO, which included construction and acquisition subject-matter experts, to help regional teams deliver Recovery Act projects on time and in accordance with GSA’s policies and Recovery Act requirements. The PMO provided additional support and oversight to GSA’s capital investment process. The PMO grouped GSA’s 11 regions into three Recovery Act zones. GSA officials stated that the objectives of the zone structure were to create and foster the sharing of ideas and resources and to provide project oversight. GSA zone and regional recovery executive officials were responsible for, among other things, monitoring and reviewing the performance of Recovery Act projects and managing risks at the regional level. GSA selected 259 federal buildings and U.S. courthouses for its Recovery Act program, in addition to a number of small projects. As shown in table 1, these Recovery Act projects fall into two main categories: (1) conversions to green buildings, and (2) new construction or renovations. The Recovery Act directed GSA to use the majority of its funding—$4.5 billion—to convert its federal buildings and courthouses to green buildings, as defined in section 401 of EISA. Among other things, a green building must, throughout the life cycle of the building, as compared with similar buildings, accomplish the following: reduce energy, water, and material resource use; improve indoor environmental quality, including reducing indoor pollution, improving heating and cooling, and improving lighting and acoustic environments that affect occupant health and productivity; reduce negative impacts on the environment, including air and water pollution and waste generation; and consider indoor and outdoor effects of the building on human health and the environment, including improvements in worker productivity, and other factors, considered appropriate by specified green-building officials. GSA’s portfolio of buildings is also subject to federal energy and water conservation requirements and goals established in federal statutes and executive orders. For example, the National Energy Conservation Policy Act, as amended by EISA and the Energy Policy Act of 2005, established energy-efficiency performance standards. EISA amendments require, for example, that agencies—including GSA—apply conservation measures that annually reduce energy consumption resulting in a 30 percent reduction by fiscal year 2015 compared to a fiscal year 2003 baseline to applicable facilities across an agency’s entire portfolio. Similarly, Executive Order 13423 requires federal agencies to reduce their water consumption by 16 percent by the end of fiscal year 2015 compared to a fiscal year 2007 baseline. According to GSA officials, the agency obligated its $4.5 billion in Recovery Act funds to green projects that would help convert federal buildings and courthouses into green buildings and that could be obligated quickly. To reflect these priorities, GSA developed selection criteria for full and partial modernization projects (for both federal The first three criteria buildings and courthouses) presented in table 2.were unique to Recovery Act projects and given the highest priority. The remaining five criteria are those GSA typically uses to select capital investment projects. GSA convened an interdisciplinary team of approximately 20 GSA subject matter experts, including some who would eventually sit on the newly created PMO, to select Recovery Act projects according to the criteria. According to agency officials, GSA’s criteria served as a reference for initial project rankings, and the PMO made some modifications to those rankings to arrive at a final project list, to ensure, for example, that each of GSA’s 11 regions received funding. Once the PMO and initial list of selected projects were created, officials from the PMO would recommend new projects as funds became available due to, for example, cost savings on other projects. In total, GSA used about $800 million of its $4.5 billion green building funds toward 15 full or partial courthouse modernization projects (an average of about $53 million each). EISA’s broad definition of green building attributes provided GSA flexibility in carrying out its first selection criteria, targeting projects that would help transform buildings into green buildings. For example, each of the full or partial modernization courthouse projects we reviewed contained green infrastructure components aimed at reducing energy and water use, such as energy-efficient lighting and upgraded mechanical systems or water-efficient bathroom fixtures. In our review of eight full or partial modernization courthouses, we also found instances at each courthouse where GSA utilized EISA’s broad definition of a green building to incorporate other goals, such as improving indoor environmental quality, fire protection and life safety systems, or building layout. According to GSA officials, each of these projects—which were designed under the supervision of GSA regional officials—were reviewed by GSA’s PMO and legal department to make sure projects supported the goals of EISA. The following examples illustrate how GSA used a portion of its green Recovery Act funds for green infrastructure and other broader uses: At the Hipolito F. Garcia Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in San Antonio, Texas, GSA installed solar panels and a solar water heater on the roof (fig. 1), a green roof on the interior courtyard, energy- efficient lighting, water-efficient plumbing throughout the building, and a new heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system, among other upgrades. At the Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse in New York City, New York, GSA used $64 million to pay for construction cost increases of the full modernization project. According to GSA officials, costs increased due to unforeseen building conditions that required additional work, funding to remediate asbestos from the historic building, and the higher-than-expected cost of construction in Manhattan at the time. At the Birch Bayh Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Indianapolis, Indiana, GSA used a portion of its green funds to complete structural renovations in bathrooms to increase accessibility for people with disabilities. The project also included lead paint and asbestos removal, new carbon monoxide sensors, and fire alarm sprinkler systems. At the George C. Young Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Orlando, Florida, GSA regional officials told us they requested and received $12.5 million in additional Recovery Act green project funds to move an elevator pavilion to the building’s exterior and improve the building’s layout (fig. 1). To minimize the execution risk and expedite the execution timing of Recovery Act projects, GSA generally selected projects that had already completed design work. GSA officials said that they used Recovery Act funding to quickly begin or expand construction on these projects, while also identifying ways to incorporate energy savings or environmental improvements into their design. To guide the design process and ensure that these projects contained green elements, GSA established minimum performance criteria (MPC), which we will discuss in greater detail later. Additionally, GSA funded cost escalation for some ongoing modernization projects—that is, projects that needed additional funding to start or complete construction. GSA estimated the return on investment or cost effectiveness of its Recovery Act investments based on a calculation of each investment’s simple payback period. Pursuant to Department of Energy regulations, as a rough measure of cost effectiveness, federal agencies may calculate a simple payback period for projects that demonstrate payback periods significantly shorter than the useful life of such projects. The simple payback period estimates the amount of time it takes to recover the cost of an initial investment, through future energy and water cost savings. An energy or water conservation technology is likely to be cost-effective if its estimated payback period is less than the useful life of that system. In accordance with the National Institute of Building Sciences’ Whole Building Design Guide, GSA can calculate cost effectiveness for all project components within a building as a whole, rather than individually. This process allows the benefits of some technologies to exceed the cost recovery time frames if they are offset by technologies with shorter cost- recovery time frames, up to an average of 40 years. Table 3 shows simple payback period estimates for selected energy- and water-saving technologies installed at the Hipolito F. Garcia Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in San Antonio. According to GSA’s analysis shown below, project components that recover costs quickly, such as high-efficiency chillers and low-flow plumbing fixtures have been combined with components that take longer to recover costs, such as solar water heaters, for a simple payback period below 40 years. In addition to $4.5 billion in green funds, the Recovery Act provided GSA with $750 million for federal buildings and U.S. courthouses. While GSA generally selected projects that helped it build or acquire new courthouses, other eligible uses included repairs and alternations to existing buildings, building security enhancements, and building operations and maintenance. As of May 2014, GSA had used $257 million of its $750 million-general- purpose funds for seven courthouses and the remainder on federal buildings that did not have a judiciary presence. As shown in table 4, this included construction of a new courthouse, escalation funds for three new courthouses, and the acquisition of three new courthouses GSA originally planned to lease.