Report: House must offset one-quarter of all carbon emissions

To ensure that the House will be carbon-neutral by the end of the 110^th Congress, it will need to offset more than a quarter of its carbon emissions, according to the “Greening of the Capitol” report set to be released Thursday.

The House will offset 24,000 of its 91,000 tons of carbon emissions by purchasing $95,000 in offsets from the Chicago Climate Exchange. The money will be taken out of the chief administrative officer’s (CAO) budget, the report states.

{mosads}The amount of emissions that will need to be offset is less than the 34,000 tons originally anticipated in the preliminary report, released in April. But the Capitol Power Plant’s conversion to natural gas — a $2.75 million fix that was included in a House spending bill — decreased the number of offsets by 10,000 tons.

Dan Beard, chief administrative officer of the House, is releasing the report, which outlines ways to make the House carbon-neutral by Sept. 30, 2008.

Going beyond the recommendations in the preliminary report, the new version also calls for a 50 percent reduction of energy consumption in 10 years.

“This is a very aggressive goal and we think we can do it,” Beard said.

The House is required by law to make a 2 percent reduction each year, but Beard said he thought 5 percent a year was “possible and appropriate.”

“We ought to set an example,” he said.

The report outlines 133 separate recommendations.

Earlier this year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called on Beard to outline ways to make the House more energy-efficient.

Using statistics developed by the Government Accountability Office, the report estimated that the House complex emitted around 91,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions in fiscal year 2006.

The report noted that was the equivalent of 17,200 cars.

“Electricity use was the largest source of emissions, accounting for 63 percent of total carbon emissions,” the report stated. That translates into 103,000 megawatt-hours per year.

In light of that finding, all electricity will be purchased from renewable sources beginning in October, the report says. The estimated $520,000 cost for that switch has been included in the legislative-branch spending bill.

Beard also recommends that the Capitol Power Plant reduce the amount of coal it burns and use natural gas instead. That would lower carbon dioxide emissions from the power plant by 30 percent from their 2006 level, according to the report.

The report calls for Congress to pass legislation to reach that goal, but acknowledges that this “will take many years to plan, finance, and implement.” Accordingly, Beard recommends that the Capitol Power Plant improve steam and chilled water production efficiency and distribution systems.

But as for the remaining carbon emissions, Beard noted that he was very careful in his choice in offsets.

“I needed to be very cautious in the way we offset the remaining 24,000 tons. I determined that the best way was to participate with the Chicago Climate Exchange, which is the only nationally recognized and audited climate exchange in the U.S,” he said.

Beard said that he met with members of the Chicago Climate Exchange on two occasions, had lawyers go over the material, and plans on making a year-long purchase in September. But Beard remarked that he did not want to be purchasing a specific project and that the projects must be domestic.

“I want to make sure the way we’re approaching it is a blind trust,” Beard said. “We’re not directing funds to any particular project, and only domestic projects.”

One Greenpeace energy expert said that offsets can be “problematic,” but he applauded the recommendations overall.

“They’re doing the right thing here,” John Coequyt, a Greenpeace energy and policy specialist, said, noting that the House leadership is looking to do everything it can to reduce the energy output and then purchasing offsets. He said that 24,000 tons is not a “gigantic offset purchase” and pointed to the Capitol Power Plant as the significant problem on the Hill.

Janet Peace, of the Pew Center on Climate Change, said that the Center on Global Climate Change is generally supportive of offsets, but noted that there are bound to be some problems in an unregulated market system.

“The Chicago Climate Exchange has been criticized for not being very transparent,” Peace said. “You can’t go online and see precisely how they measure, manage and verify baselines or even the permanence of the offsets sold on their market.”

Peace noted that the Chicago Climate Exchange was the first to create an entire cap-and-trade system, including registered offsets, in the U.S., and that it has done many things to further this issue along. However, not everything within the Exchange’s system would translate into the rules for a mandatory program, and this may include some of the rules around offsets.

Agricultural methane, landfill methane, forestry, renewable energy and coal-mine methane are some of the projects that companies can invest in on the Chicago Climate Exchange.

The Exchange did not return calls for comment.

Other recommendations in the report include using metering, commissioning and tracking to improve operating efficiency and management; installing energy-efficient lighting; updating heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment and practices; adopting new technologies and optimal operating practices for electronics and office equipment; making computer rooms and servers more efficient; and evaluating other services for energy-saving opportunities.