Testimony
of
Matthias Paustian
Sierra Club DC Chapter
on the
Department of General Services FY 2022 Budget
Committee on Government Operations and Facilities
Wednesday, June 16, 2020
Thank you, Councilmember White, for the opportunity to testify at this hearing on the budget for the Department of General Services (DGS). My name is Matthias Paustian, and I am speaking today on behalf of the Sierra Club, the nation’s oldest and largest environmental advocacy organization, with chapters in every state. Here in DC, we have 3,000 dues-paying members.
A key topic for the Sierra Club is making sure that the District government acts as a climate leader by transitioning its own buildings and facilities to become carbon neutral. The Sierra Club has reviewed the FY 2022 Budget as well as the Capital Improvement Plan of the Department of General Services (DGS) to see whether parts of such a transition are funded.
DGS is required to comply with the two legal provisions that need to be fully funded:
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The Clean Energy DC Omnibus Act of 2018 requires DGS to develop a strategic energy management plan for undertaking an “energy retrofit program across at least 9% of the DGS portfolio of District government-owned buildings by square footage between 2021 and 2024, prioritizing buildings that have core systems and equipment nearing the end of their useful lives, with a goal of achieving at least 30% reductions in energy and greenhouse gas emissions.” The energy management plan is soon to be completed, but the energy retrofit program itself still needs to be fully funded. The program is conceptually distinct from the Building Energy Performance Standard (BEPS) because it aims to achieve a reduction of at least 30 percent of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. The performance pathway compliance path of BEPS requires only a 20 percent energy reduction.
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In addition to the retrofit requirement, DC government buildings larger than 10,000 square feet are subject to BEPS. Though compliance with the standard is not required for several years, it is important to begin BEPS compliance in this budget year because there are too many buildings impacted for DGS to delay addressing these issues until later years.
The proposed budget includes limited funds allocated to a line item titled “Energy Retrofitting of District Buildings,” which support implementation of BEPS. But it appears there are no funds explicitly allocated for the more stringent tasks of reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by at least 30 percent across 9 percent of gross floor area of DC government buildings, as required by the Clean Energy DC Omnibus Act of 2018.
So how much funding would be needed to meet both provisions? It appears to us that the Portfolio Management Division of DGS has 677 buildings totalling 36 million square feet under its purview. We believe these are government-owned, not including leased buildings. In the 2019 energy benchmarking data, 16 million square feet of DC government owned buildings are non-compliant with BEPS. Approximately 3.25 million square feet of those would automatically become BEPS compliant if DGS were to upgrade 9 percent of its gross floor area to achieve the more stringent 30 percent energy reduction required in the Clean Energy DC Omnibus Act. Assuming a cost of $13 per square foot would mean $42 million is needed. The remaining roughly 13 million square feet that require upgrades due to BEPS at a cost of $8.50 per square foot result in further funding needs of $110 million. These per-square-foot cost estimates are taken from the Urban Green Council for commercial retrofits. The total required funding is approximately $150 million. This is only an estimate, but is based on best available (yet uncertain) cost data and actual non-compliance square footage that the DC government has reported in benchmarking data.
How much funding is proposed in the budget for this? As best as we can tell, energy retrofit measures are allocated $3.4 million in FY22, $1 million in FY23, $1.25 million in FY24, and $2 million each year in FY25 through FY27. This totals $11.65 million over six years.
Energy retrofits are enormously underfunded. The fiscally prudent approach for the Council is to provide the necessary capital spending to fully fund all of these retrofit measures. These are investments that are targeted to reduce ongoing operational energy expenses. As a result, these investments will pay for themselves over time, by my estimates in perhaps a ten year time frame. After that, investments today generate net savings while cutting greenhouse gas emissions, reducing local air pollution, and increasing the productivity of the buildings’ occupants by boosting their comfort in the workplace.
The Sierra Club’s request therefore is to fund energy retrofits in FY22 by $30 million and to a total of no less than $150 million over the capital improvement plan horizon. In addition, we ask that any energy retrofit program measure not install new fossil fuel burning equipment. Spending capital to install new fossil fuel infrastructure is incompatible with the District‘s climate commitments.
We plan to submit additional written testimony on the DGS budget in a few days.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
Additional Written Testimony
Net-Zero Energy Buildings
We are disappointed and concerned that DGS Director Anderson testified in the June 16 budget hearing that DGS is not planning any new net-zero energy buildings until the three projects currently under construction (West Elementary School, Banneker High School, and Stead Rec Center) have been completed and operated for one to two years. If the director maintains this position, the agency will be unable to attain the objective in the Agency Performance Plan for the Sustainability and Energy Division that states: “Makes existing and new DGS buildings the most environmentally sustainable, comfortable, and resource efficient of any city in the US.”
As we said in our oversight testimony in March, net-zero buildings are essential for the District to achieve Mayor Bowser’s commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. We again urge the Council to require that all new DC government buildings be net-zero energy.
Net-zero buildings are not a novelty; DGS can learn from the experiences in other jurisdictions. The New Buildings Institute identifies and tracks over 700 verified and emerging net zero building projects in the United States and Canada in its database. The database lists seven projects in the District. According to the New Buildings Institute, “...the growth trend for net zero is steep. The count of verified and emerging buildings across the United States and Canada has increased tenfold since 2010.”
We also recommend that the FY22 budget include funding to expand training for DGS on the management and maintenance of net-zero buildings, perhaps in cooperation with the University of the District of Columbia.
Whole-of-Agency Approach
As we said in our oversight testimony, the District needs to take a whole-of-government approach to the climate crisis. The Department of General Services must take a whole-of-agency approach, and leadership needs to come from the top, from the Mayor and Director Anderson. It cannot be only the Sustainability and Energy Management Division (DGS-SE) that concerns itself with how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce air pollution, and increase resilience to climate-related extreme weather. The Capital Construction Services Division must incorporate climate and environment considerations into their decision-making as well. In addition to building only net-zero energy buildings, all new and renovated government buildings should include electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
DGS Office of Sustainability and Energy Management (DGS-SE)
We are encouraged that DGS-SE finally has a director again. However, as we said in our oversight testimony, the sustainable energy division still needs more staff to carry out its critical mission, and we encourage Mayor Bowser and the Council to deploy more resources to this agency in the FY22 budget. Training DGS staff in the management of modern net-zero energy buildings is also essential and requires organizational commitment and funding.