Sierra Club Asks Mayor to Fully Fund Clean Energy Programs & Other Environmental Priorities

Mayor Muriel Bowser
John A. Wilson Building
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20004

Dear Mayor Bowser,

The Sierra Club is excited to work with your administration to implement the Clean Energy DC Omnibus Act. We believe that if the Act is implemented properly, it will set DC on the path to meet your commitment to make DC carbon neutral by 2050 and make DC a clean energy leader that cities and states around the country will follow. We wrote to you on January 22 and February 13 about implementation of the Act’s provisions regarding transportation electrification and Building Energy Performance Standards.

Today we write to ask that the Act be fully funded in the Fiscal Year 2020 budget. We also request full funding for other environmental priorities in DC.

The 100% Renewable Portfolio Standard will result in the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions reductions from the Act. The Public Service Commission and DC’s electricity suppliers are largely responsible for the transition to green electricity. Substantial carbon pollution reductions will come from other provisions of the Act, but only if those provisions are properly implemented and fully funded, starting in FY 2020 and continuing in future years.

Special Purpose Funds

The District's key clean energy and efficiency programs – the Sustainable Energy Utility, Solar for All, Building Energy Performance Standards, and the Green Finance Authority (“Green Bank”) – share funding mechanisms, including the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund (SETF) and the Renewable Energy Development Fund (REDF). The SETF is financed by a surcharge on the electric and gas bills of utility customers and sellers of heating and fuel oil. The REDF is funded by compliance fees paid by electricity suppliers who fail to meet DC’s renewable energy and solar energy requirements. Both funds are intended to be used only for energy efficiency and clean energy programs.

In the past, these funds have been raided for unrelated purposes, most recently in the FY 2018 budget. The Act increases the SETF fee to pay for new programs created by the Act. With these important clean energy and energy efficiency needs, and given the urgent threat of climate change, the Sierra Club asks that these special purpose funds never again be used for anything other than reducing DC’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS)

The Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS) program created by the Act requires the Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) to establish energy efficiency standards for different building types to reduce energy use and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. DOEE estimates this portion of the Act will save 939,000 metric tons of carbon pollution annually, or 10.7% of DC’s total greenhouse gas emissions. The Fiscal Impact Statement for the Act states that the cost to implement the BEPS program will be $1.2 million in FY 2020 and $1.1 million in each of the following two fiscal years. To guarantee that the BEPS program meets the energy savings and carbon reductions estimated by DOEE, we ask that the BEPS program be fully funded in FY 2020 and future budgets.

Funding for Renewable Energy and Efficiency Upgrades

To provide assistance to building owners in making upgrades needed to meet the BEPS requirements, the Act provides: $70 million over six years to the Green Bank; additional funding for the DC Sustainable Energy Utility (DCSEU); assistance to low-income residents and Certified Business Enterprises (CBEs); and in later years, funding to assist affordable housing and rent-controlled building owners to make efficiency upgrades. We ask that these programs be fully funded.

Re-calculating the Vehicle Excise Tax

The Act requires DC’s existing motor vehicle excise tax to be re-calculated based on fuel economy. The excise tax will be increased for less fuel-efficient vehicles and decreased for more fuel-efficient vehicles based proportionally on how far from a benchmark standard the vehicle’s emissions fall. The cost to implement the revised tax, according to the Fiscal Impact Statement, is $218,000 in 2019. This is a minuscule amount of money to achieve greenhouse gas reductions from this provision of the Act estimated by DOEE to be 76,500 metric tons annually, or 1% of DC’s total carbon pollution. Because the revised tax must go into effect on January 1, 2020, only three months after the beginning of the new fiscal year, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) needs every penny for implementation on October 1, 2019.

Transportation Electrification

The Act requires that within 180 days, the Mayor establish a transportation electrification program requiring public buses, large private fleets, commercial motor carriers, limousines, and taxis to begin to transition to electric power, with all of those vehicles completely electric by 2045. The Act provides $250,000 for the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) to prepare a comprehensive clean vehicle transition plan to carry out the requirements of the Act. We ask that the $250,000 from the REDF be provided to DDOT for the study. We also ask that DDOT be provided adequate resources, from general fund revenues, to begin implementing the program, including money to begin replacing fossil-fuel-burning Circulator and school buses with electric buses.

Public Transit

In addition to transitioning DC’s buses to electric power, we ask for continued funding for design and construction linking the Streetcar from Union Station to the Benning Road Metrorail station. The estimated cost over the six-year capital budget cycle is $106 million, and the Sierra Club asks that you provide full funding and resist any efforts by the DC Council to reduce Streetcar funding.

Further, we ask that DDOT begin planning to build the Streetcar west past Union Station toward downtown DC. This would better link Ward 7 residents to job opportunities across the city and create a high-capacity east-west transit link, powered by electricity that in just over a decade will come from 100% renewable sources.

Clean Water

The Sierra Club applauds DC Waters’s efforts to reduce the discharge of raw sewage into the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers during heavy rainstorms. Though we are pleased with the results of DC’s Clean Rivers program, the Clean Rivers Impervious Area Charge (CRIAC) that funds the project is financially unsustainable for some low-income residents and nonprofit groups. We request that the FY 2020 budget provide at least $7 million (the same amount as FY 2019) for relief from CRIAC fees. However, we do not view this annual appropriation as the correct approach to addressing the problem. Instead, we advocate revising the CRIAC formula to require that the District and federal governments be held responsible for impervious public rights of way.

The Sierra Club also asks that the Lead Water Service Line Replacement and Disclosure Act of 2018 be fully funded. As DC Water replaces lead pipes on DC’s side of the property line, we must protect low-income residents who might otherwise forego lead pipe replacement on their property. There is no safe level of lead in drinking water, especially for children. To protect future generations, we must make the financial commitment necessary to eliminate lead service lines in DC.  

Zero Waste

The District is not on track to meet its goal of 80% waste diversion by 2032. Our rate of waste diversion is well below the average in the region. We ask that funding for the Department of Public Works (DPW) Office of Waste Diversion be dramatically increased to ensure DC meets its waste diversion targets. Past underfunding of the Office of Waste Diversion has resulted in the delay of several DPW studies and pilots, some of which are required under the Sustainable DC Omnibus Act of 2014.

The Sierra Club appreciates DOEE’s work to enforce the polystyrene and plastic straw bans. But we see violations of the regulations every day. DOEE needs more funding to expand its three-person team that enforces DC’s bag law and bans on polystyrene, plastic straws and plastic stirrers.

Thank you for your pledge to make DC carbon neutral by 2050, for signing the Clean Energy DC Omnibus Act of 2018, and for all your efforts to make DC more sustainable. We look forward to working with you in this endeavor.

Sincerely,

Mark Rodeffer, Chair, Sierra Club DC Chapter
Catherine Plume, Vice Chair, Sierra Club DC Chapter
Lara Levison, Clean Energy Committee Chair, Sierra Club DC Chapter
Larry Martin, Clean Water Committee Chair, Sierra Club DC Chapter

CC:
Brian Kenner, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development
Tommy Wells, Director, Department of Energy and Environment
Jeff Marootian, Director, Department of Transportation
Lucinda Babers, Director, Department of Motor Vehicles
Christopher Geldart, Acting Director, Department of Public Works
Jenny Reed, Director, Office of Budget and Performance Management
Rashad Young, City Administrator
Phil Mendelson, Chairman, DC Council
David Grosso, At-Large Councilmember
Anita Bonds, At-Large Councilmember
Elissa Silverman, At-Large Councilmember
Robert White, At-Large Councilmember
Brianne Nadeau, Ward 1 Councilmember
Jack Evans, Ward 2 Councilmember
Mary Cheh, Ward 3 Councilmember
Brandon Todd, Ward 4 Councilmember
Kenyan McDuffie, Ward 5 Councilmember
Charles Allen, Ward 6 Councilmember
Vincent Gray, Ward 7 Councilmember
Trayon White, Ward 8 Councilmember