Energy-saving projects on Capitol Hill delayed

Numerous energy-savings projects on Capitol Hill have been delayed indefinitely, part of more than $2 billion in federal “greening” programs put on hold in the final days of the Bush administration.

The Department of Energy, which awarded the contracts under Bush, has said that it wishes to get the projects up and running “as quickly as possible,” but could not give a definite timeframe.

{mosads}Less than two weeks before President Obama was sworn in to office, the DOE notified the contracted companies that the “ceiling” — the number of existing projects the DOE can approve at a set time— had been reached.

Among those notified was Ameresco, a Massachusetts-based company that is responsible for a series of five energy-efficiency projects on Capitol Hill. Those include measures for the Capitol, the Senate office buildings, the Capitol Police buildings, the Botanical Gardens and the Library of Congress.

The contracts — called Super Energy Savings Performance Contracts (Super ESPC) — were sought by the Architect of the Capitol (AOC), which oversees the maintenance and operation of the majority of Capitol Hill infrastructure, as a way to save energy and money.

“We were at the point where we had already submitted our final numbers to the Architect of the Capitol’s office for the Senate office building projects and were hoping to move into construction in March or April,” said Keith Derrington, Ameresco’s vice president for federal solutions. “But in January DOE sent letter out to the companies and the AOC saying that we needed to halt our efforts.”

The AOC declined to comment for this article.

Ameresco projected an energy savings of $210 million over 15 years for the Capitol Hill ventures with the AOC. The contracted ventures include installing energy-efficient lighting, upgrades to the heating and air conditioning system, a water conservation system, a steam heating system and solar absorbing energy panels on the roofs.

Since his election, Obama has adamantly advocated for more energy-efficient government buildings, saying that he would strive to see a 25 percent improvement in existing buildings during the next five years. The DOE under Obama has pledged to keep the existing energy-saving performance contracts projects going.

“The flaws in the original ESPC contracts from several years ago have been addressed in the department’s new set of contracts for future work, and Secretary (Steven) Chu is committed to resolving the individual cases that have been affected by the old contracts,” said Dan Leistikow, spokesman for the DOE. “He is committed to getting the work moving as quickly as possible.”

Ameresco began designing the energy-efficiency projects for the AOC in October 2007. If the DOE does not raise the ceiling on the project, then Ameresco would have to resubmit proposals, findings and designs, in a process that could take as long as two years to get to the stage they currently are at. This would make the earliest date for beginning construction in the first months of 2011.

The Capitol Hill building contracts are only part of the contract Ameresco received through the DOE. Other energy-savings projects include engineering for buildings belonging to the National Archives, NASA, McGuire AFB in New Jersey, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Ameresco officials said they probably have invested about $5 million in all of their projects nationwide that they’ve been awarded. But many other companies have invested more money into their DOE-awarded ventures.

“Around $30 million the industry has invested in developing all of these projects and all of a sudden DOE says they’re not going to raise the contract ceiling, sorry about your $30 million,” said William Cunningham, Ameresco’s vice president of corporate relations, who added that the total number of nationwide energy-related contracts would provide nearly 30,000 jobs immediately.

Ameresco officials said they are not sure why the DOE did not raise the ceiling, as it has done in the past, but are in talks with the Obama administration to try and resolve the matter quickly.

“We’re continuing to have meetings with DOE, but we’ve been in a holding pattern since the letters came out,” Derrington said.

Ameresco said that the DOE’s lawyers they have spoken with say the contracts need congressional action to move forward. But Ameresco’s lawyers insist that is not the case.

Ameresco officials tried unsuccessfully to include language in the financial stimulus package that passed the House last week. They feel they have exhausted their congressional angles and now all they can do is wait for the Obama administration to act.

“We’re in limbo here,” Cunningham said.

Former Bush administration DOE officials and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who chairs the Senate Rules and Administration Committee that oversees the Senate office building maintenance, did not return calls by press time.