Green the Capitol program comes under new management

{mosads}Pelosi’s office weighed in following the announcement, describing the change over as a “turning point” in the efforts of the former Speaker as well as many other members to make the House a model of sustainability.

But, “many Republican Members have chosen to demagogue the issue; the Green the Capitol initiative has been a successful sustainability effort that has saved taxpayer money, cut energy usage, and reduced waste,” wrote Pelosi’s spokesman Drew Hammill in a statement.

“Working closely with the Green the Capitol initiative, Architect of the Capitol Stephen Ayers has taken bold steps to apply the progress made by the House to the entire Capitol complex,” he added. “The Architect should continue to implement measures in the most aggressive manner possible including the 50 percent energy reduction goal for the House of Representatives.”  

The CAO has brought a number of sustainability issues to the forefront in the House, identifying energy and cost-saving measures that the AoC then carried out, according to the release.

Among those measures were the AoC’s installation of 30,000 energy-efficient light fixtures in 2010. The AoC also installed LED lighting technology that could be dimmed in the Rayburn House cafeteria, which resulted in a more than 70 percent reduction in lighting energy consumption within a matter of months.

“Working with the AoC, our staff put together a blueprint that we’ve used to save energy on the House side of the Capitol,” wrote CAO Dan Strodel in Thursday’s release.

“Now it’s time to hand this initiative over to the Architect to incorporate sustainable practices across the Capitol complex to realize even greater savings,” he concluded.

The transition of such duties strictly to the AoC just makes sense for both offices, said CAO spokesman Dan Weiser.

“This is a really efficient way to use our resources,” he told The Hill.

House Administration Committee spokeswoman Salley Wood concurred. 

“We believe this transition to a campus-wide initiative will promote greater collaboration between the two chambers, which will ultimately yield greater energy savings,” she said.

Updated at 2:40 p.m.