Reps. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., and William Enyart, D-Ill., have introduced legislation that would overturn a provision in the Energy Conversation and Production Act that requires federal buildings to reduce consumption of fossil fuels, which are heavily produced in the regions they represent.
The provision in question called for cutting in half the use of energy sources such as coal and natural gas in all new and modified federal buildings valued at $2.5 million and above as an interim step, and cutting it out completely in new and modified buildings by 2030. Coal and natural gas are cheap, and powering buildings in the federal inventory should be done as cheaply as possible, they say.
The lawmakers acknowledged in a joint statement that the Department of Energy has not issued a final rule implementing the provision, which has been on the books since 2007, but insist that cheap energy sources should remain in place in the face of a clean energy push by GSA in recent years that looks to new technologies to lessen the use of fossil fuels and has become a dynamic area of federal real property management.
