A leading Republican senator wants the government to remind its employees of what parents constantly tell their children: turn off the lights when you leave a room.
Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is sponsoring an amendment to an energy bill that would require the Secretary of Energy to issue guidelines to all federal agencies to reduce energy costs by requiring federal employees to turn off the lights and other devices when they are not being used.
He said that despite a growing number of energy efficiency projects, energy spending by the federal government has increased to more than $20 billion a year–$7 billion of that to light, heat and cool federal buildings.
Coburn’s staffers researched the issue in another old-fashioned way, by going around the Washington area to see if the lights were on in federal buildings at night. At one EPA building on a Sunday night, for example, nearly all the lights were on.
Coburn said that "to its credit, the Department of Energy is the one building where the vast majority of lights appeared to be turned off after regular work hours."
He is the senior GOP member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
