[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

THE SCIENCE BEHIND
GREEN BUILDING RATING SYSTEMS

=======================================================================

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS AND
OVERSIGHT

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

__________

TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2012

__________

Serial No. 112-82

__________

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov

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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

HON. RALPH M. HALL, Texas, Chair
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
Wisconsin JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California ZOE LOFGREN, California
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland BRAD MILLER, North Carolina
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri BEN R. LUJAN, New Mexico
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas PAUL D. TONKO, New York
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas JERRY McNERNEY, California
PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia TERRI A. SEWELL, Alabama
SANDY ADAMS, Florida FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
BENJAMIN QUAYLE, Arizona HANSEN CLARKE, Michigan
CHARLES J. ``CHUCK'' FLEISCHMANN, SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
Tennessee VACANCY
E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia VACANCY
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi VACANCY
MO BROOKS, Alabama
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois
CHIP CRAVAACK, Minnesota
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
DAN BENISHEK, Michigan
VACANCY
------

Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight

HON. PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia, Chair
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., PAUL D. TONKO, New York
Wisconsin ZOE LOFGREN, California
SANDY ADAMS, Florida BRAD MILLER, North Carolina
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois JERRY McNERNEY, California
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
DAN BENISHEK, Michigan
VACANCY
RALPH M. HALL, Texas EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas

C O N T E N T S

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Page
Witness List..................................................... 2

Hearing Charter.................................................. 3

Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Paul C. Broun, Chairman, Subcommittee
on Investigations and Oversight, Committee on Science, Space,
and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.................. 13
Written Statement............................................ 14

Statement by Representative Brad Miller, Substituting for Ranking
Minority Member Paul D. Tonko, Subcommittee on Investigations
and Oversight, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
U.S. House of Representatives.................................. 15
Written Statement............................................ 17

Witnesses, Panel I:

Dr. Kathleen Hogan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy
Efficiency, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy,
Department of Energy
Oral Statement............................................... 18
Written Statement............................................ 20

Mr. Kevin Kampschroer, Director of the Office of Federal High-
Performance Green Buildings, General Services Administration
Oral Statement............................................... 27
Written Statement............................................ 29

Discussion 38

Witnesses, Panel II:

Mr. Ward Hubbell, President, U.S. Green Building Initiative
Oral Statement............................................... 42
Written Statement............................................ 44

Mr. Roger Platt, Senior Vice President, Global Policy and Law,
U.S. Green Building Council
Oral Statement............................................... 56
Written Statement............................................ 58

Dr. John Scofield, Professor of Physics, Oberlin College
Oral Statement............................................... 65
Written Statement............................................ 67

Mr. Victor Olgyay, Principal Architect, Built Environment Team,
Rocky Mountain Institute
Oral Statement............................................... 72
Written Statement............................................ 74

Mr. Tom Talbot, CEO, Glen Oak Lumber and Milling of Wisconsin
Oral Statement............................................... 87
Written Statement............................................ 89

Discussion....................................................... 93

Appendix: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Dr. Kathleen Hogan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy
Efficiency, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy,
Department of Energy........................................... 100

Mr. Kevin Kampschroer, Director of the Office of Federal High-
Performance Green Buildings, General Services Administration... 104

Mr. Ward Hubbell, President, U.S. Green Building Initiative...... 115

Mr. Roger Platt, Senior Vice President, Global Policy and Law,
U.S. Green Building Council.................................... 117

Dr. John Scofield, Professor of Physics, Oberlin College......... 123

Mr. Victor Olgyay, Principal Architect, Built Environment Team,
Rocky Mountain Institute....................................... 124

Mr. Tom Talbot, CEO, Glen Oak Lumber and Milling of Wisconsin.... 125

Appendix 2: Additional Material for the Record

Green Building Certification Systems Hearing Follow-Up Items..... 134

Written Testimony of Ronald E. Jarnagin, Former ASHRAE President. 136

Statement for the Record on Behalf of the National Association of
HomeBuilders................................................... 146

Statement for the Record by Subcommittee Ranking Member Paul D.
Tonko.......................................................... 153

THE SCIENCE BEHIND GREEN BUILDING RATING SYSTEMS

----------

TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2012

House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:06 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Paul Broun
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.

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Chairman Broun. The Subcommittee on Investigations and
Oversight will come to order.
Good morning. Welcome to today's hearing entitled ``The
Science Behind Green Building Ratings Systems.'' You will find
in front of you packets containing our witness panel's written
testimony, their biographies, and their Truth in Testimony
disclosures. I now recognize myself for five minutes for an
opening statement.
The Federal Government is a major developer and operator of
commercial buildings nationwide. The energy consumption of
these buildings is a significant expense to taxpayers. Since
federal buildings tend to be left untouched for many years,
upfront investments in truly energy-saving technologies can
save taxpayer dollars in the long run. One only has to walk
along Pennsylvania Avenue to see how long some federal
buildings go without energy efficient upgrades.
Ongoing efforts by the Department of Energy have led to the
development of new technologies and strategies to reduce
federal building energy consumption and its related energy
bill. Many of these efforts reflect common sense approaches to
saving money, such as more efficient air conditioners and
better insulation. There are other efforts that I have concerns
with, such as the $10 million L Prize award from the Department
of Energy to the manufacturer of a $50 LED light bulb. Even
with taxpayer subsidies, a $50 light bulb has a very long
payback period, if ever.
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 directed
DOE to choose one or more third-party rating systems every five
years for federal buildings. I have several questions about how
this process has worked in the past and how it will work in the
future. In 2007, GSA and DOE chose the LEED rating system and
the Federal Government has used this system on a large number
of projects. I am interested in learning how the Federal
Government has benefited from using LEED over the past five
years. Specifically, are we saving taxpayers money as a result
of LEED standards? The current five-year cycle is coming to a
close and the Pacific Northwest National Lab released its
review of private-sector green building certification systems
just last week.
Our second panel contains representatives from two of the
three certification systems that were studied in detail in the
report, LEED and Green Globes. As private entities, they are
free to operate as they wish. However, both of these entities
directly benefit financially from the Federal Government paying
them to use their rating systems. I would like to hear about
the differences between the two systems, why these differences
exist, and why one is more deserving of taxpayer dollars. I
would also like to learn why both of these rating systems are
more effective than one that could be developed by DOE and GSA
themselves.
I am also concerned that consensus appears to be missing in
some cases. For example, the timber certification standards
recognized by the two rating systems represented here today are
quite different. What scientific basis, if any, exists to
explain this difference? Why is some of Mr. Talbot's wood
effectively devalued by a government adoption of a third-party
standard? Does GSA and DOE agree with the preference for FSC
wood in LEED and its impact on Mr. Talbot's business and his
employees?
Recent proposed changes to LEED for 2012 also appear to
penalize some common building materials with little or no basis
in science, such as PVC piping. I am not sure why PVC piping in
a warehouse is such a concern. Shouldn't we instead be focusing
on saving taxpayer dollars rather than social engineering?
As the Science Committee, we should be guided by metrics
that identify where government investments will have the most
cost-effective impact. A full life cycle assessment can help
determine which of potentially many choices has the lowest
overall cost, and prior investments should be verified by peer-
reviewed research to ensure that taxpayer dollars were spent
properly.
As I have said before, our Nation is in an economic crisis
with high debt and high unemployment. Adopting standards for
federal buildings that truly save the taxpayers money and put
Americans back to work is a good idea. In contrast, adopting
standards that don't save taxpayer money or tell American
workers that the products that they make are not welcome in
federal buildings defies common sense.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Broun follows:]

Prepared Statement of Subcommittee Chairman Paul C. Broun

The Federal Government is a major developer and operator of
commercial buildings nationwide. The energy consumption of these
buildings is a significant expense to taxpayers. Since federal
buildings tend to be left untouched for many years, up-front
investments in truly energy-saving technologies can save taxpayer
dollars in the long run. One only has to walk along Pennsylvania Avenue
to see how long some federal buildings go without energy efficiency
upgrades.
Ongoing efforts by the Department of Energy have led to the
development of new technologies and strategies to reduce federal
building consumption and the related energy bill. Many of these efforts
reflect common sense approaches to saving money, such as more efficient
air conditioners and better insulation. There are other efforts that I
have concerns with, such as the $10 million ``L Prize'' award from the
Department of Energy to the manufacturer of a $50 LED light bulb. Even
with taxpayer subsidies, a $50 light bulb has a very long payback
period.
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 directed DOE to
choose one or more third-party rating systems every five years for
federal buildings. I have several questions about how this process has
worked in the past and how it will work in the future. In 2007, GSA and
DOE chose the LEED rating system, and the Federal Government has used
this system on a large number of projects. I am interested in learning
how the Federal Government has benefited from using LEED over the past
five years. Specifically, are taxpayers saving money as a result of
LEED standards?
The current five-year cycle is coming to a close, and the Pacific
Northwest National Lab released its review of private-sector green
building certification systems last week. Our second panel contains
representatives from two of the three certification systems that were
studied in detail in the report, LEED and Green Globes. As private
entities, they are free to operate as they wish. However, both of these
entities directly benefit financially from the Federal Government
paying them to use their rating systems. I'd like to hear about the
differences between the two systems, why these differences exist, and
why one is more deserving of receiving taxpayer dollars. I'd also like
to learn why both of their rating systems are more efective than one
that could be developed by DOE and GSA themselves.
I am also concerned that consensus appears to be missing in some
cases. For example, the timber certification standards recognized by
the two rating systems represented today are different. What scientific
basis, if any, exists to explain this difference? Why is some of Mr.
Talbot's wood effectively devalued by a government adoption of a third-
party standard? Do GSA and DOE agree with the preference for FSC wood
in LEED and its impact on Mr. Talbot's business and his employees?
Recently proposed changes to LEED for 2012 also appear to penalize
some common building materials with little to no basis in science, such
as PVC piping. I'm not sure why PVC piping in a warehouse is such a
concern. Shouldn't we instead be focusing on saving taxpayer dollars
rather than social engineering?
As the Science Committee, we should be guided by metrics that
identify where federal investments will have the most cost-effective
impact. A full life cycle assessment can help determine which of
potentially many choices has the lowest overall cost. And prior
investments should be verified by peer-reviewed research to ensure that
taxpayer dollars were spent properly.
As I've said before, our Nation is in an economic crisis with high
debt and unemployment. Adopting standards for federal buildings that
truly save the taxpayer money and put Americans to work is a good idea.
In contrast, adopting standards that don't save taxpayer money or tell
American workers that the products they make are not welcome in federal
buildings defies common sense.

Chairman Broun. I now recognize the Ranking Member, Mr.
Miller, for five minutes.
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Chairman Broun. I am actually not
the Ranking Member, but I am stepping in this morning for my
friend, Mr. Tonko, who has pressing business in his district.
The American people are way ahead of Congress on the need
for energy efficiency, and they are getting impatient. A survey
released in March by the nonpartisan Civil Society Institute
found that three out of four Americans, 76 percent, including
58 percent of Republicans, 83 percent of independents, 88
percent of Democrats, think the United States should move to a
sustainable energy future through ``a reduction in our reliance
on nuclear power, natural gas and coal and instead launch a
national initiative to boost renewable energy and energy
efficiency.'' The same survey found that more than three out of
four Americans, 77 percent, including 70 percent of
Republicans, 76 percent of independents, 85 percent of
Democrats, believe that, quoting again, ``The energy industry's
extensive and well-financed public relations campaign
contributions and lobbying machine is a major barrier to moving
beyond business as usual when it comes to America's energy
policy.''
No plan to increase energy efficiency can leave out
buildings. America's buildings account for more than 40 percent
of our primary energy consumption. By 2030, we will see almost
two-thirds of our existing buildings replaced with new
buildings or renovated. We have a terrific opportunity to drive
efficiency into building energy consumption if we adopt smart
standards.
Today the Committee will discuss this evolving building
industry. We will examine standards surrounding green buildings
and also high-performance green buildings. As has often been
true in the past, the Federal Government has turned to the
private sector for guidance on building efficiency standards.
The first OSHA rules were cribbed entirely from private
industry's voluntary workplace safety standards published by
the American National Standards Institute, ANSI, and those are
the right standards. There were bad actors in industry who were
willing to put their workers' lives at risk to save a buck but
most of industry really did want to do the right thing and
struck the right balance at the time between the need for
workplace safety and cost, and OSHA's first rules were almost
word for word those ANSI standards.
Similarly, GSA, in applying the Energy Independence
Security Act for energy efficiency in federal buildings, also
largely relied on the rating system published by the Leadership
in Energy and Environmental Design, LEED, a private-sector
effort. Are those standards or the standards of the Green Globe
rating system, another private-sector system, the right
standards for now? And how can we make sure that those
standards remain properly demanding as our energy technologies
improve?
Green building is simply construction aimed at reducing the
overall environmental effects of a building in its construction
and operation. High-performance green building takes the
additional steps of weighing the uses of the building against
the environmental costs of the building, looking for ways to
increase environmental performance while taking into account
the activities that will be housed in that space. For example,
a high-performance green building integrates and optimizes on a
life cycle basis--a lot of jargon today--all major high-
performance attributes including energy conservation,
environment, safety, security, durability, accessibility, cost,
benefits, productivity, sustainability, functionality and
operational considerations.
It is not easy right now to create a high-performance green
building because you need to mix complex technologies to meet
all of those performance attributes. Even after building
completion, systems rarely work together to improve overall
energy efficiency and environmental performance.
The inefficiencies resulting from this fragmentation of
building components and systems and the lack of monitoring and
verification of building performance point to a need for a more
integrated approach to building design, construction, operation
and technology development. While the current array of rating
systems are useful, they can be improved to support building
performance better.
With broad support by both Republicans and Democrats,
Congress has recognized the need to build high-performance
buildings by passing several energy bills with strong
efficiency targets and provisions requiring adoption of
standards and sustainability principles that will lead to high-
performance federal buildings. By adopting these requirements,
the Federal Government is leading the way to more efficient and
better performing buildings. The Federal Government's portfolio
of more than 500,000 buildings functions as a laboratory,
provides us a laboratory for new technologies and whole
buildings that are working to meet demanding standards,
encouraging innovation in the private sector and driving down
the costs for consumers.
We should ask how those investments are performing and
whether our standards are driving significant reductions in
energy consumption. We should be looking for the strongest
models and constantly improving our analytical abilities for
design and performance based on real-world lessons. However,
there is no question that the Federal Government can help drive
change in the market, not just our own buildings, which are
significant enough, but change in the market, driving
innovation and savings that will have wide-ranging benefits in
reducing demand for energy, a cleaner environment and public
health benefits.
I hope this hearing will illustrate to the American people
that Congress can work together to ensure tax dollars are spent
in a way that represents their strong views in support of
sustainable energy.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Actually, I had no
time to yield.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Miller follows:]

Prepared Statement of Acting Ranking Member Brad Miller

This statement is not available.

Chairman Broun. Thank you, Mr. Miller, and I don't think
you will find any disagreement with the statement that you just
made that the Federal Government being engaged in making
decisions and picking winners and losers certainly is going to
drive the marketplace, and I think it should be the other way
around. The marketplace drives policy, and I think the
marketplace unencumbered by taxes and government regulations is
the best way to control quality, quantity and cost of all goods
and services, including my business of health care.
Now, if there are Members who wish to submit additional
opening statements, your statements will be added to the record
at this point.
At this time I would like to introduce our first panel of
witnesses: Dr. Kathleen Hogan, the Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Energy Efficiency at the Office of Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy of the Department of Energy, and Mr. Kevin
Kampschroer. Is that how you pronounce your name?
Mr. Kampschroer. Kampschroer, please.
Chairman Broun. Kampschroer. I will try to remember that.
My name is Broun, but it is spelled B-r-o-u-n, so I try to be
very--I will try to keep that right. But Mr. Kampschroer is the
Director of the Office of Federal High-Performance Green
Buildings at the General Services Administration.
As our witnesses should know, spoken testimony is limited
to five minutes each, after which the members of the Committee
will be given five minutes each to ask questions. Your written
testimony will be included in the record of the hearing.
It is the practice of the Subcommittee on Investigations
and Oversight to receive our testimony under oath. Do either of
you have an objection to taking an oath?
Mr. Kampschroer. No, sir.
Dr. Hogan. No.
Chairman Broun. Okay. Let the record reflect that both of
them are certainly willing to take the oath. Now, either of you
may be represented by counsel. Do either of you have counsel
with you here today?
Dr. Hogan. No.
Mr. Kampschroer. No, sir.
Chairman Broun. Okay. Very good. Let the record reflect
that the witnesses do not have counsel. Now, if you all would
stand and raise your right hand? Do you solemnly swear to tell
the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help
you God? Okay. You may be seated. Let record reflect that the
witnesses participating have taken the oath.
Now I recognize our first witness, Dr. Hogan. Ma'am, you
are recognized for five minutes. If you could, try to keep it
within that five-minute period. I would appreciate it. Thank
you.

STATEMENT OF DR. KATHLEEN HOGAN,

DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR ENERGY EFFICIENCY,

OFFICE OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND

RENEWABLE ENERGY, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Dr. Hogan. Thank you. Chairman Broun, Member Miller and
other Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to discuss the Department of Energy's initiatives
with energy-efficient and sustainable buildings.
Increasing the efficiency of our Nation's buildings is an
important focus for the Department, for many of the reasons you
have already mentioned, and then including the fact that the
large energy bill can be reduced by 20 to 50 percent or more
cost-effectively through a variety of approaches.
To achieve these savings, the Department supports research
and development of new advanced technologies as well as
supports programs to accelerate their adoption and use. In
addition to saving energy, money, this of course also creates
domestic jobs and helps protect our environment. Today I would
like to make five points in this area.
First, the Federal Government does pursue a range of energy
and other goals, goals set by Congress as well as the executive
branch, which form an overriding portfoliowide framework for
the government's sustainability efforts, and the government is
making great strides in many of these goal areas. The key goals
that have been established through EPAct 2005, EISA 2007 and
Executive Orders that particularly drive improvements in
federal buildings include ones for energy intensity, water
intensity, greenhouse gas reduction, renewable energy,
sustainable procurement and data center efficiency among
others, and recent achievements in these areas are quite
substantial. It includes reductions in energy use per square
foot by about 15 percent, reductions in water use intensity by
more than 10 percent, use of renewable energy sources for more
than five percent of electricity, and of course, the impact for
savings are quite meaningful across the broad portfolio of
federal buildings.
The second point I want to make is about the Department of
Energy's Federal Energy Management Program, or FEMP, which
provides assistance across the government to help achieve these
goals cost effectively for the taxpayer. FEMP was established
to provide services, tools, expertise to help the federal
agencies address the many complex issues with these efforts and
to achieve their energy and sustainability goals. As an
example, since 2006, FEMP has assisted federal agencies in
saving over $5 billion in energy costs over the average life of
efficiency measures implemented through energy savings
performance contracts, and FEMP is now working with federal
agencies to, among other efforts, help them achieve substantial
additional savings through the Better Buildings Challenge, an
effort to engage in $2 billion in additional performance-based
contracting by December 2014. FEMP is also implementing a
tracking database pursuant to EISA 2007 that will provide
building performance data for metered buildings as well as data
on available and untapped cost-effective energy savings
measures as well as water.
The third point I want to make is that DOE is making
progress on its responsibilities under EISA to consult with GSA
and the Defense Department to identify a green building
certification system for the Federal Government. We drafted a
proposed rule, presented it at a public hearing in 2010, and it
is important, I think, to note that in this proposed rule, DOE
did not propose to pick a particular third-party certification
system but chose instead to allow federal agencies to use any
third-party certification system that would meet the statutory
criteria with the addition of one criterion that the
certification system include verification post occupancy. We
are currently responding to public comments and drafting the
final rule for the certification criteria. In addition, we are
working with GSA and the Defense Department in GSA's most
recent study that you will all hear more about.
Fourth, DOE is advancing a broad building research and
development portfolio to improve building efficiency as well as
the other important things here, improving comfort and lowering
energy bills. We have goals to reduce the energy required to
operate new buildings by 50 percent and to reduce energy
required to operate existing commercial and residential
buildings by 50 and 40 percent, respectively. We are also
working on the new Better Buildings Challenge to work with a
variety of organizations to improve the efficiency in the
marketplace by 20 percent or more across the whole portfolio of
buildings that organizations have. We have great participation
in this effort as of December 2011.
I think the last point I want to make is that we undertake
all of these efforts in strong coordination with our federal
peers. We routinely coordinate with agencies such as DOD, NIST,
GSA, Department of Housing, and EPA on these initiatives. We
have memorandums of understanding in place that outline
coordination mechanisms, rules and responsibilities, and we
have regular exchanges.
In summary, I think we are making great progress improving
the efficiency of our Nation's buildings and saving money.
There clearly remains a lot of additional opportunity in the
federal sector and across the country and efforts that can
build jobs, save energy and protect our environment.
We appreciate the opportunity to be here to comment on
DOE's role, and I am happy to address your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Hogan follows:]

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Chairman Broun. Thank you, Dr. Hogan.
Mr. Kampschroer, you are recognized for five minutes, sir.

STATEMENT OF MR. KEVIN KAMPSCHROER,

DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF FEDERAL

HIGH-PERFORMANCE GREEN BUILDINGS,

GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION

Mr. Kampschroer. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Broun,
Member Miller and Members of the Subcommittee. My name is Kevin
Kampschroer, and I am the Director of the Office of Federal
High-Performance Green Buildings within GSA's Office of
Government-wide Policy. Thank you for inviting me today to
discuss our work on the Green Building Certification System
review as well as the Federal Government's role in using sound
science and peer-reviewed studies to evaluate and implement
advanced building technologies. I am submitting my testimony
for the record.
Today I will highlight our use of tools that help us
achieve building performance requirements, including the use of
green building certification systems. Congress, in the past two
Administrations at least, has set aggressive building
performance goals through law and Executive Order that the
Federal Government must meet. In establishing these building
performance requirements, Congress, the Administration, the
Chair and the Ranking Member have all mentioned that buildings
use almost 40 percent of U.S. energy, 70 percent of
electricity, 13 percent of our freshwater resources and form
part of an indoor environment where Americans spend 90 percent
of their time. With these enormous impacts also comes the
opportunity for a variety of benefits. Compared to average
buildings, high-performance buildings use less energy, water
and material resources, have better indoor environmental
quality, reduce air and water pollution and produce less waste.
To accomplish these goals set in statute and Executive
Order, the Federal Government needs to use every tool available
to evaluate, to measure and to improve building performance. We
rely on the best data available to make decisions about which
tools to use, whether it be peer-reviewed research or case
studies.
One tool the Federal Government uses to evaluate and
measure building performance is green building certification
system. Just as with other tools, green building certification
systems have evolved over time. In recognition of this,
Congress included a requirement within the Energy Independence
and Security Act of 2007 for GSA to evaluate and compare
available third-party green building certification systems.
EISA also requires that the GSA Administrator recommend a
comprehensive approach to the Secretary of Energy, who in
consultation with the Secretary of Defense and other
appropriate parties will encourage the governmentwide
certification of green federal buildings.
My office is currently conducting our review focusing on
new construction, major renovations and existing buildings. We
are subjecting our review to a rigorous, thorough and
transparent process which will include the opportunity for
public comment before we make a recommendation to the Secretary
of Energy. On May 3, my office released the facts and findings
from a study conducted by the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory. Three systems met the minimum expectations of a
green building certification system with respect to EISA: Green
Building Initiatives, Green Globes, U.S. Green Building
Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and
the International Living Building Institute's Living Building
Challenge. Though the study provides no recommendations, it
does conclude that none of the systems we have reviewed meet
100 percent of the Federal Government's needs.
I have asked the Department of Energy and the Department of
Defense, and they have agreed to co-chair an interagency
taskforce to work through the issues around building
performance requirements and including the applicability of
ASHRAE standard 189.1 using our recently published study to
guide the discussions. There are six planned meetings for the
interagency taskforce with the first meeting scheduled on May
17. Given the high level of interest, we are planning listening
sessions where the public can provide input both in person and
remotely. Prior to submitting our recommendation to the
Secretary of Energy, my office will publish the interagency
taskforce conclusions in the Federal Register and will solicit
comments from the public over a period of 60 days. Only after
taking into consideration the deliberations of the interagency
taskforce and the public comments from the listening sessions
and the Federal Register notice will the GSA Administrator make
his or her final recommendation to the Secretary of Energy,
which we anticipate to be in the fall.
Another tool GSA and other federal agencies use to improve
building performance is the energy savings performance
contract, which is a contracting vehicle that allows agencies
to accomplish energy projects for their facilities with
private-sector engineering, design and funding for upfront
capital costs. The investment is paid back through guaranteed
cost savings from building improvements that save energy and
water at the facility.
Last fall, my office, in collaboration with DOE's Federal
Energy Management Program, launched a program to enhance and
increase the use of these contracts across the government, and
it coincides with providing advice to all the agencies
participating in the $2 billion challenge that Dr. Hogan just
mentioned. We will use GSA buildings nationwide to demonstrate
how to use ESPCs to achieve maximum savings possible with no
artificial limit on the use of technologies.
Thank you again for this opportunity to come before you.
All of us in the Federal Government who are managing its real
property inventory are excited by the contribution that
Congress has allowed us to make. I am available to answer any
questions you may have. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kampschroer follows:]

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Chairman Broun. Thank you, Mr. Kampschroer. I thank you
both for your testimony, reminding Members that Committee rules
limit questioning to five minutes. The Chair at this point will
open the first round of questions. The Chair recognizes himself
for five minutes.
Mr. Kampschroer, I understand that your deputy is a federal
liaison to the board of directors of U.S. Green Building
Council and his trips to their board meetings are paid for by
U.S. taxpayers. Can you please provide for the record a list of
all of the board meetings that he has attended and in what
capacity? And finally, can you explain to the Committee why it
is that a senior GSA employee has such a role in an entity that
is competing for and receiving taxpayer dollars, even with a
recusal system in place? Doesn't it send the wrong message to
GSA employees and the USGBC competitors?
Mr. Kampschroer. Mr. Horn has been a federal advisor to the
U.S. Green Building Council. We have also had federal advisors
to the board of the Green Building Initiative. It is part of
our participation in the development of standards. The matter
of payment for trips to the board is a standard which we have
reviewed by our general counsel and meets the guidelines that
GSA has set out for non-federal source travel, so most of the
travel is actually not paid for by the American taxpayer.
Chairman Broun. Well, if you would provide a list of those
meetings as I requested as well as----
Mr. Kampschroer. I would be happy to.
Chairman Broun. As you and I know, GSA is under a
microscope for the travel and things that have occurred in the
news recently.
Mr. Kampschroer, what is the total amount of taxpayer
dollars' that GSA has spent on LEED certification costs?
Mr. Kampschroer. I can get that information for you. I do
not know off the top of my head.
Chairman Broun. Okay. If you would, please provide that for
the Committee.
Dr. Hogan, how does energy efficiency rank compared to
other criteria in determining what is a green building?
Dr. Hogan. Yes, so as we talked about green means many
things and there are multiple pathways to get to green, and as
the Department of Energy and really all of the federal agencies
pursue the large number of goals that we have for energy
efficiency, water efficiency, there is a lot of emphasis put on
those pathways that get you to green that also really help you
meet the goals that have been set by Congress as well as the
Executive Orders. So that would mean that energy efficiency
ranks quite high in what we look for when we go down the path
to seeking a high-performance or certified building as part of
the federal fleet.
Chairman Broun. I didn't hear a clear definition there, but
that is fine. I don't think any member of this Committee would
disagree with us seeking energy efficiency. I think where the
disagreement would arise is between something that Mr. Miller
said in his opening statement about going to totally renewable
resources and that process of trying to get away from fossil
fuels, which my Democratic colleagues seem to hate, and that we
need to utilize those God-given energy resources in a
economically and environmentally sustainable way. I don't think
any of us want to see clean air--or dirty air or dirty water.
Mr. Kampschroer, the National Technology Transfer and
Advancement Act requires federal agencies to recognize and
incorporate existing consensus standards and policy
initiatives. How do you respond to the lack of OMB and ANSI-
defined consensus in the U.S. green buildings rating
development process?
Mr. Kampschroer. In our most recent review, both LEED and
Green Globes seemed to meet the criteria for a consensus-based
standard. We are also engaging with the National Institutes of
Science and Technology, or NIST, to review that finding as they
are the people who aid all of the government in the
interpretation of this law and the implementing OMB Circular
119.
Chairman Broun. Very quickly, how can you be certain of the
true environmental benefits of your green building policies?
Mr. Kampschroer. Through, as Dr. Hogan mentioned, rigorous
measurements post renovation and post operation over time.
Chairman Broun. Okay. Thank you, sir.
My time is expired. I now recognize Mr. Miller for five
minutes.
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will start providing
you a copy of my statement in writing so that you do not rely
upon your apparently imperfect ability to comprehend it as you
hear it read aloud. I certainly did not say what you said I
said in my statement.
Chairman Broun. If I misinterpreted, I apologize.
Mr. Miller. Well, I said that we should reduce--I said the
American people think we should reduce--overwhelmingly, the
American people think we should reduce our reliance on fossil
fuels--I certainly did not say in my statement we should end
the use of fossil fuels--and that we should support energy-
efficient technologies.
Now, I am puzzled by where we are in the standards here.
Was I incorrect, either of you, when I said in my statement
that we really began with industry standards, that no
government agency is promulgating energy-efficient standards
for buildings, you are sort of starting with those that are
developed by private sector, the rating systems that we talked
about private-sector efforts, industry efforts. Is that right?
I mean, we heard before, and we hear frequently about
government picking winners and losers. We heard it in the
commentary immediately after my statement, that government is
picking winners and losers, although I made it very clear in my
statement, I think, that government is actually trying to use
what industry is developing. We are working with industry. Is
that right, Ms. Hogan, or is that Dr. Hogan?
Dr. Hogan. Either will work.
Mr. Miller. Okay.
Dr. Hogan. So you are right. So we are not--what the
Department of Energy put out in a proposed rule in the area of
green building certifications in 2010, which is still in
process but what we put out in a proposed rule in 2010
established a set of criteria, largely picking from the
criteria or using the criteria enumerated in EISA 2007 and
adding one additional that said the federal agencies could go
and choose a third-party certification system, any one that
would meet these criteria. So we are not setting or developing
our own certification, we are enumerating based on largely what
Congress gave us a set of criteria that we think are the ones
that will deliver the benefits we all are looking for and then
the agencies can choose based on if they want to what is out
there in the marketplace that has been developed by industry as
long as they would meet those criteria.
Mr. Miller. Okay. And I don't think anyone would suggest
you should just blindly follow something developed by some
third-party group. You should do some analysis to figure out
whether those are the right standards.
Mr. Kampschroer, first of all answer the same question that
Dr. Hogan just answered, but also, what studies do you plan to
do in the future to determine the benefits of high-performance
building and whether the measures being adopted are the right
ones, the most cost-efficient ones, the ones that will lead to
the most energy efficiency for the cost?
Mr. Kampschroer. Thank you. Briefly, I think it is
worthwhile distinguishing between green building certification
systems, which are used to measure the delivery of projects to
the government, and standards which might be used as a form of
specification. Generally speaking, the government does not use
the green building certification systems as a way to specify
what is desired but rather as a way to measure what is
delivered. Standards such as ASHRAE 90.1 or the energy code are
used to specify minimum performance levels, and in fact, EPAct
requires us to be 30 percent better than ASHRAE Standard 90.1.
As to the question of benefits and measures, I think this
is a key point. We have seen that in not all cases do buildings
actually perform at the level they are designed to perform
regardless of certification level or whether or not the
building has been certified. So a significant reason for doing
the demonstration project research that we are doing in
conjunction with the Department of Energy and others is to
measure the benefits in detail, publish them in a way and then
take that research and apply it to other buildings. So I think
the key thing here is really accurate measurement over an
extended period to see how buildings are performing.
Mr. Miller. Is the way that you are using these third-party
rating systems and the way that you have described it
substantially different from the way that they are being used
in industry?
Mr. Kampschroer. I think it is, in some cases, different
than industry. I think, in some cases, building owners are
using green building certification systems in lieu of providing
detailed performance requirements for their buildings. The
government does not do that.
Mr. Miller. My time is expired, as you were about to say,
Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Broun. I was indeed. Thank you so much, Mr.
Miller.
Now, Dr. Bucshon, you are recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Bucshon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
For Dr. Hogan, drafts of the LEED 2012 proposed a credit
for the avoidance of certain products commonly used today. Has
the DOE or its lab studied how this would impact federal energy
savings goals or increase the cost of federal buildings?
Dr. Hogan. We have not at this time studied that.
Mr. Bucshon. Do the federal buildings being built today,
are the windows, are they made of vinyl? Are we using foam
insulation? I mean, how are they being built today?
Dr. Hogan. The codes that are in place today still allow a
variety of technologies to meet a performance specification, so
our codes are largely performance based. Typically, there also
are tables that demonstrate how you can put together packages
of certain technologies to meet those performance levels, but
typically it is technology neutral based on performance.
Mr. Bucshon. And under potential new standards, would all
that be the same?
Dr. Hogan. Yes. Certainly as we participate with code
bodies and the Department of Energy brings information to the
table, we are very focused on the performance that can be
achieved, the energy savings that can be achieved and not
trying to be prescriptive about what technology gets there.
Mr. Bucshon. Okay. And Mr. Kampschroer, so the GSA would
support a credit, and hasn't it routinely used products in the
past that the credit would potentially penalize?
Mr. Kampschroer. Potentially, as with the Department of
Energy, we have not studied this proposed credit yet. It was
not included in our recent evaluation because it is merely
proposed and has not actually been incorporated.
Mr. Bucshon. Okay. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Broun. Thank you, Dr. Bucshon.
Now, Mr. McNerney, is he--he is not coming back? Okay.
Stand by one minute here. We appreciate you all's testimony.
Members may very well want to give you additional written
questions. If you would be very expeditious in answering those
as quickly and as thoroughly as you possibly can, and you are
now excused, and thank you for your testimony.
As they are taking their seats, I would like to introduce
our second panel of witnesses: Mr. Ward Hubbell, the President
of U.S. Green Building Initiative: Mr. Roger Platt, the Senior
Vice President for Global Policy and Law of the U.S. Green
Building Council; Dr. John Scofield, a Professor of Physics at
Oberlin College; Mr. Victor Olgyay, Principal Architect of the
Built Environment Team of the Rocky Mountain Institute; and Mr.
Tom Talbot, the CEO of Glen Oak Lumber and Milling.
As our witnesses should know, spoken testimony is limited
to five minutes each, after which Members of the Committee will
ask all you all questions. Your written testimony will be
included in the record of the hearing.
It is the practice of the Subcommittee on Investigations
and Oversight to receive testimony under oath. Do any of you
have an objection to taking an oath? Let the record reflect
that all witnesses indicated that they are willing to take an
oath. You also may be represented by counsel. Do any of you
have counsel with you here today? Let the record reflect that
all of them indicated that they do not have counsel. If you all
would please raise your right hand? Do you solemnly swear and
affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so
help you God? Thank you. You may be seated. Let record reflect
that all the witnesses participating have taken the oath.
And as he takes his seat, I will recognize Mr. Hubbell for
five minutes, our first witness. Mr. Hubbell.

STATEMENT OF MR. WARD HUBBELL, PRESIDENT,

U.S. GREEN BUILDING INITIATIVE

Mr. Hubbell. Thank you, Chairman Broun, Mr. Miller and
other Members of the Committee.
My organization is the Green Building Initiative. We are
the exclusive U.S. licensee to Green Globes, an online green
building assessment and rating system for new and existing
commercial buildings. The GBI is recognized as a standards
developer by the American National Standards Institute and
became the first green building organization to publish an ANSI
standard for commercial green building. Our organization also
developed the first third-party certification protocol
specifically designed to measure compliance with the federal
guiding principles for sustainable buildings.
Today, I will describe our rating tools and comment on
current federal policy regarding green building assessment and
rating.
Green Globes is a proven method for evaluating and
improving the environmental performance of new, renovated and
existing commercial buildings. It delivers a comprehensive
sustainability assessment through an interactive, web-enabled
platform, which results in greater ease of use, lower cost and
the convenient evaluation of building performance over time. We
also offer what we believe is the most credible, comprehensive
and cost-effective third-party certification process that
exists today.
Green Globes has been used to certify buildings owned by
governments, major corporations, small businesses, school
districts and higher education institutions across the country,
and has been formally recognized as an equivalent standard to
LEED in more than 20 U.S. States.
Green Globes is highly compatible with the federal guiding
principles for sustainable buildings due to its focus in areas
such as energy and water conservation, carbon emission
reduction and continuous improvement. In a study released last
week, GSA reported that Green Globes for New Construction, and
I am quoting from the report ``aligns at some level with more
of the federal sustainability requirements for buildings than
any other new construction system reviewed by the GSA.''
One of the reasons Green Globes has been so well received
in the federal sector is due to some of its unique technical
features. For example, to measure energy efficiency, Green
Globes uses the EPA's Energy Star program, which evaluates the
whole cycle of energy performance. Through Energy Star, our
users can benchmark their energy performance against actual
data from similar building types rather than relying on
hypothetical energy data as other rating systems do. More than
a third of Green Globes points are weighted to energy and only
those buildings projected to perform in the top 25 percent of
buildings nationwide are eligible for energy performance
points.
To evaluate the impacts of construction materials, Green
Globes employs life cycle assessment, a science-based approach
that measures the environmental footprint of materials based on
five major criteria: embodied energy, global warming potential,
and impacts on land, air and water. We provide this information
through a peer-reviewed, online calculator which we developed
and incorporated into Green Globes. This tool enables building
owners to select and be rewarded for using the lowest impact
materials that can meet the practical demands of their
building's intended use.
Other technical features of Green Globes include a focus on
management criteria over the life cycle of a building and
incentives to reuse existing buildings and increase building
durability.
Now, in addition to Green Globes, we have also developed a
third-party certification protocol specifically designed to
measure compliance with the federal guiding principles.
Executive Order 13514 requires that 15 percent of an agency's
buildings larger than 5,000 square feet meet the guiding
principles requirements by fiscal year 2015. Through this
program, we provide a survey, a third-party on-site assessment,
a compliance score and rating, and detailed recommendations for
improvement. To date, nearly 200 federal buildings have gone
through this program and more are in the pipeline.
Despite our successful interactions with federal agencies,
we do not believe there is a level playing field with regard to
green building certification across the federal sector. The
Department of Energy and GSA, both of which own or manage many
buildings in the U.S, continue to have LEED-only policies. We
believe those policies should be reconsidered in light of GSA's
own findings regarding Green Globes and due to the availability
of a guiding principles compliance tool which was designed to
provide 100 percent alignment with the federal principles.
In conclusion, we believe that if general performance goals
are set as they have been, agencies should have the flexibility
to use a variety of credible tools to help them achieve their
sustainability goals. Locking federal agencies into a one-size-
fits-all approach, as a LEED-only policy does, constrains the
federal sector to the limitations of one tool and discourages
organizations like mine from being innovative, keeping prices
low and focusing intensely on good customer service. In their
sustainability plan, GSA lists as one of their accomplishments
that they are a proving ground for new green building
technologies. We believe their policy toward green building
rating systems should reflect that.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hubbell follows:]

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Chairman Broun. Thank you, Mr. Hubbell.
Now, Mr. Platt, you are recognized for five minutes.

STATEMENT OF MR. ROGER PLATT,

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT,

GLOBAL POLICY AND LAW,

U.S. GREEN BUILDING COUNCIL

Mr. Platt. Thank you, Chairman Broun, Member Miller,
Members of the Committee. I am here today on behalf of the U.S.
Green Building Council, a nonprofit with more than 13,000
organizational members, the vast majority of which are small
businesses. We have 75 local chapters covering all 50 states,
which represent 30,000 individual members. I am Roger Platt,
the Senior Vice President at USGBC.
I am here today to tell you what our organization does to
encourage and recognize best practices in the design,
construction and, most importantly, perhaps, in the operation
of high-performance buildings. We are best known for our LEED
rating system, L-E-E-D, stands for Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design, and the system provides a verifiable
framework for driving energy efficiency, water conservation,
waste reduction and best practices in building design and
performance.
Today, LEED-certified and registered projects represent
more than 8 billion square feet of commercial real estate. As a
point of reference, the island of Manhattan has roughly 400
million square feet of commercial office space. LEED projects
cover that many times.
We have also trained a workforce of nearly 200,000 LEED-
accredited professionals in the United States and globally.
That is a whole new category of jobs.
Let me turn first to why and how LEED was developed.
Buildings in this country account for 40 percent of our
Nation's energy consumption and more than 70 percent of our
electricity use. Collectively, we spend nearly $400 billion a
year to power all of these buildings. According to a recent
McKinsey and Co study, more than 30 percent of that money, or
$130 billion, is wasted. Building industry professionals from
private and public sector helped establish LEED back in 2000,
12 years ago, as a way to reduce this waste and expense. Over
the past 12 years, LEED has quickly become the most successful
voluntary, private, market-driven building rating system in the
country.
Part of the reason for our success is that LEED is
developed through an extremely open, transparent, consensus-
driven process, a process insisted upon by our diverse
constituency of business leaders and professional
practitioners. Membership in USGBC is completely voluntary, and
LEED was developed to be used in a voluntary and flexible
manner.
Today there are more than 12,000 LEED-certified buildings
in the U.S., and every day one and a half million additional
square feet of commercial real estate are certified as complete
projects. That is the equivalent of certifying about three
Empire State Buildings every week.
This tremendous demand for LEED is driven by the business
case. The scale of this is not explicable in any other way than
as being a market-based phenomenon. High-performing LEED-
certified buildings save money and deliver higher profit
margins. Iconic companies such as Coca-Cola, Home Depot,
Procter and Gamble, just to name a few, rely on LEED
certification to manage costs, increase their product
performance and their bottom line. For the same reason, nearly
half of the Fortune 100 uses LEED certification.
Governments, like businesses, are eager to find ways to
implement the LEED standard and the best practices it reflects
but they do it because they want to save taxpayer money. The
Federal Government is the largest single user of energy in the
U.S., and several federal agencies have embraced LEED to
minimize waste. For example, in 2011, the Pacific Northwest Lab
found GSA LEED-certified buildings reduced energy use compared
to the national average by 25 percent. These high-performance
buildings reduced operational costs by 19 percent when compared
to the national average. Recently, the Treasury Building just
down the street underwent an historic preservation retrofit, in
the process achieving a LEED Gold Standard. The energy and
water conservation elements of that LEED project save taxpayer
dollars in the amount of $3.5 million every single year.
In conclusion, LEED saves energy, water, natural resources
and jobs, and as a U.S. citizen, to me, that means LEED is
saving taxpayer dollars.
I look forward to answering your question.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Platt follows:]

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Chairman Broun. Thank you, Mr. Platt. I appreciate you
keeping it within five minutes, too.
Dr. Scofield, you are recognized for five minutes.

STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN SCOFIELD,

PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS,

OBERLIN COLLEGE

Dr. Scofield. Good morning. My name is John Scofield. I am
a Professor of Physics at Oberlin College and a member of the
American Physical Society. For the last two decades, I have
written about various aspects of renewable energy and green
buildings including two peer-reviewed articles which address
energy consumption by LEED-certified new commercial buildings.
It is on this topic that I am here to speak to you today. The
comments I offer are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect
the views of Oberlin College or the American Physical Society.
There are many features that characterize a green building,
but none are more important than energy: energy consumed during
construction, energy embodied in the building and energy used
to operate the building. Studies have shown that over the
lifetime of a building, the energy used for operation dominates
these other forms. This is particularly true for federal
buildings because they last so long. So the paramount goal of
any green building standard, in my opinion, must be to
significantly reduce the total primary energy consumption.
So do green-certified buildings save energy? There are many
examples of those that do but others do not. The question
really is this: are there convincing, credible scientific data
showing that certified green buildings collectively use less
primary energy than other buildings. It is really similar to
asking the same question about certifying a drug for use. And
the answer to this question is no, there are not such credible
data. Without this scientific justification, green building
certification remains nothing more and nothing less than an
herbal remedy. Individuals surely have the right to doubt such
remedies, but the Federal Government should not mandate them or
pay for them with my tax dollars.
The problem with the science behind green building
certification is twofold. First, there is a woeful lack of
credible metered energy data for green or so-called high-
performance buildings. Energy data are the private property of
the building owner. Having already benefited from the positive
publicity of the green label, they have little to gain and much
to lose in making energy consumption data public. In many
cases, energy flows are not even measured. And when energy data
are volunteered by owners, there is no doubt there is a
tendency to provide selective data that put the best light on
the building's performance. So-called case studies published
for high-performance buildings are frequently little more than
well-packaged marketing literature often presenting energy
simulations rather than metered energy data. And studies have
shown there to be little correlation between such simulations
and measured building energy consumption.
The second problem is simply the quality of scientific
studies. Most consider only a small set of buildings that are
hand-picked so are not representative of the larger population.
Moreover, such studies are frequently performed as contract
work without real peer review. The results of such studies are
greatly shaped by the choice of the contractor. I am aware of
only one comprehensive study of energy consumption for a large
group of green-certified buildings. This was a study performed
by the New Buildings Institute in 2007 under contract with the
U.S. Green Building Council. NBI, the New Buildings Institute,
looked at energy consumed by commercial buildings certified
under LEED new construction version II, and one of the main
conclusions drawn by NBI was that, and I quote, ``average LEED
energy use was 25 to 30 percent better than the national
average.'' This report immediately drew criticism for its
conclusion and methodology. Concerning this, an energy study
committee constituted by the American Physical Society wrote:
``Whatever their efficiency, these LEED buildings consume more
total energy per square foot either site or primary than the
average for the entire commercial building stock.''
Cathy Turner, the lead author of the NBI study, made a
summary version of their data available for independent
analysis. I have analyzed these data and identified key flaws
in NBI's methodology, and after correcting for these flaws, I
found that LEED buildings consume about the same amount of
primary energy as do comparable non-LEED buildings. LEED
buildings in this study were statistically no better or no
worse with regard to primary energy. And the same can be said
about greenhouse gas emissions as primary energy correlates
strongly with carbon emission. My study was published as a
peer-reviewed paper in the 2009 International Energy Program
Evaluation Conference. Cathy Turner, co-author of the NBI
study, was one of the reviewers of my paper.
In conclusion, while green building certification has
become popular and has succeeded in creating the image of
energy efficiency in building, I am aware of no credible
scientific study that demonstrates the efficacy of green
building certification in reducing measured primary energy for
the entire collection of buildings, or I should say, on
average.
Thank you for your attention. I look forward to answering
any questions you may have to the best of my ability.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Scofield follows:]

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Chairman Broun. Thank you, Professor. I appreciate your
testimony.
Now, is it Olgyay? Is that how it is pronounced?
Mr. Olgyay. Olgyay, please.
Chairman Broun. Olgyay. Okay. Very good. Mr. Olgyay, you
are recognized for five minutes.

STATEMENT OF MR. VICTOR OLGYAY,

PRINCIPAL ARCHITECT,

BUILT ENVIRONMENT TEAM,

ROCKY MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE

Mr. Olgyay. Thank you, Chairman Broun and Members of the
Subcommittee on Investigation and Oversight. I appreciate the
opportunity to provide this testimony on the importance of
fossil fuel reduction targets and green building rating
systems.
I lead the retrofit initiative at Rocky Mountain Institute,
RMI, an entrepreneurial nonprofit that has 30 years of
experience in addressing energy issues with the major focus on
buildings. We provide research and consult with private and
public entities and particularly service providers to provide
dramatically more efficient buildings than the typical. We seek
to find profitable business-led solutions that will help
transition the United States to a more verdant, prosperous and
secure future.
Highly efficient buildings are a crucial element of that
future, and we have directly observed the impact that
aggressive federal goals like EISA have made in inspiring
people across the country to increase the efficiency of our
built environment. We found them effective, practical and a
good investment.
RMI's analysis presented in our recent book ``Reinventing
Fire'' conservatively identified $1.8 trillion in current value
achievable through cumulative building energy savings for the
United States as a whole captured with only a total outlay of
about $400 billion over the next 40 years.
Investing in energy efficiency is a win-win situation. A
federal agency gets infrastructure improvements, improved
reliability, diversity, energy security and, of course, energy
cost savings. The Treasury achieves deeper savings, controls
energy costs. The environment benefits and Americans are put to
work. It really is good for business.
We also find that EISA's 433 section targets are being met.
These targets score frequent and ambitious energy-saving
projects that are practical and accelerate investments in new
technology. RMI has guided many projects using EISA criteria
when designing highly efficient new buildings, net-zero
buildings as well as retrofits of existing buildings. A recent
example is the Byron Rogers Federal Building in Denver, a deep
energy fit of a 1965 building which will show about a 70
percent improvement in its energy use. It offers a net present
value of about $556,000 to the GSA as compared to a traditional
building design. It is a clear path to net zero by 2030, and
when it is complete, it will be one of the most efficient
buildings in the country. Again, this is just good business. It
would be a problem if we didn't do these kinds of things.
Completed in 2010, the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory's Research Support Facility is a net-zero energy
building built to comply with EISA. Its construction cost,
design and so forth are in line with other buildings in
Colorado. A PV system, photovoltaic solar energy system is paid
for through a power purchase agreement at no extra cost to
NREL, and this building is extensively documented and monitored
so there is lots of information there.
In the private sector, we also see EISA as being really
important. We recently worked with the International Monetary
Fund headquarters here in DC. They used EISA goals as their
framework for guiding their design and found opportunities for
about a 60 percent energy reduction and cost optimized 50
percent energy reduction. We will see where that comes out.
And of course, you may have heard of the Empire State
Building, which we worked on, and that has been completed. It
is currently providing about a 38 percent energy savings in
energy improvements and also should have a payback of about
three years, a little over three years. It also, even more
importantly than that, than the energy savings, it has
increased the value of that building so it is now something
that more people desire, both the tenants and the owner, and
this is really one of the hidden things in all of these things
that what we haven't been talking about. The payback is
oftentimes much more than just energy.
So the technical goals outlined in EISA 433 are in line
with many long-term targets that have been adopted by the
building industry such as the Architecture 2030 Challenge
adopted by the AIA and ASHRAE, amongst others, and there are
more stringent standards as well--the Living Building
Challenge, which was also evaluated by the GSA, and
California's CPUC, which requires residential construction to
be net zero by 2020. And all of the codes that are linked to
these ASHRAE standards, which are also going to net zero by
2030, private-sector standards have codes linked to them as
well. So it is really--it is becoming the norm. It is really
not extraordinary at all.
And I would also commend EISA in providing for building
owners the idea of using time to coordinate investment and
increase the cost-effectiveness of implementation. Existing
technology, services and resources such as natural gas, power
purchase agreements, energy service performance contracts,
gradient cooling technology, they work now and they are part of
the roadmap. They shouldn't be excluded. But the key here is
strategic planning. What we want to do is capitalize on changes
in occupancy to effectively trigger energy savings.
I would just like to end by saying that we strongly support
the continuation of the existing Energy Independence and
Security Act sections 433 and 436. The science and practice
supporting EISA is effective and good business. Thank you for
letting me testify.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Olgyay follows:]

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Chairman Broun. Thank you, Mr. Olgyay.
Now Mr. Talbot, you are recognized for five minutes.

STATEMENT OF MR. TOM TALBOT, CEO,

GLEN OAK LUMBER AND MILLING

OF WISCONSIN

Mr. Talbot. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Miller and Members of the Subcommittee. My name is Tom Talbot,
and I am the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Glen Oak
Lumber and Milling, which operates facilities in Wisconsin,
Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Georgia, and employs 190 individuals
across all branches of our core business.
In addition, I serve on the Hardwood Federation's board of
directors. The Hardwood Federation coordinates industry policy
positions to ensure a unified voice on legislation impacting
hardwood businesses. We are the largest D.C.-based hardwood
industry trade association representing thousands of hardwood
businesses in every state in the U.S. Companies in the hardwood
industry are predominantly small family-owned businesses
dependent upon a sustainable supply of healthy timber
resources. Overall, the U.S. forest products industry produces
about $175 billion in products annually and employs nearly
900,000 men and women in good-paying jobs. The industry meets a
payroll of approximately $50 billion annually and is among the
top 10 manufacturing sector employers in 47 States.
The industry plays a significant role in the U.S. economy
and has experienced a significant decline in operations due to
the economic downturn and housing market crash. Specifically,
U.S. hardwood lumber production is down 53 percent from 2007 to
2011 with a total loss of 583,000 jobs in wood manufacturing
employment.
One of the most important opportunities for the future
viability of the forest products industry is recognition of
wood as a true green material in green building design because
of its environmental benefits. The green building market is one
of the fastest-growing markets for wood products. Some even
estimate the market could grow from its $7.1 billion value in
2010 to as much as $173 billion in value by 2015. Wood has
played a significant role as a structural material in the
United States for hundreds of years. Indeed, the USDA, the U.S.
Forest Service and the environmental community all have
recognized its impact. To quote U.S. Department of Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack from a March 2011 announcement on USDA
commitment to promoting wood in any green building designs:
``Wood has a vital role to play in meeting the growing demand
for green building materials. Forest Service studies show that
wood compares favorably to competing materials.''
To truly address the environmental concerns that green
building is attempting to resolve--reducing energy consumption,
carbon emissions, air and water pollution--green building must
use science-based systems, life cycle assessment, to evaluate
building materials. LCA is a system involving a rigorous
process that measures the environmental impact of a product.
Scott Bowe, Professor of Wood Science and Forest Products for
the University of Wisconsin, reports: ``LCA has become the
world standard for measuring the environmental impact of a
product's manufacture and use. It is important that the green
building programs used in the United States adopt LCA as their
standard measure for environmental performance.''
LCA has been incorporated into the design system by some
standards like Green Globes. Currently, the U.S. Green Building
Council's LEED standard does not use LCA to evaluate building
materials. The lack of a rigorous process to measure
environmental impacts means that products that do have a lower
environmental footprint, like wood products, are not promoted
and encouraged. For example, a recent review of several LCA
assessments by a Canadian think tank shows that substituting
one cubic meter of wood for one cubic meter of other building
materials such as steel, concrete or plastics, reduces CO2
emissions by an average of 1.1 tons.
Irrespective of species, one kilogram of U.S. hardwood
lumber stores the equivalent of 1.6 kilogram of carbon dioxide
for as long as it is in use. Wood is the only mainstream
construction material that, through sustainable management and
harvest for use in long-life products, has the potential to act
as a significant carbon pool, as opposed to a drain, within the
structure of the building.
To ensure a level playing field for all building products--
wood, steel, plastic, concrete, et cetera--the same rigorous
standards for measurement of environmental performance must be
adopted. This will require a shift towards the use of LCA and
recognition of the importance for the development and use of
environmental product declarations. LCA-based EPDs can deliver
transparent, standardized information on the full environmental
impact of a material or product across its entire life cycle.
International standards have been developed to ensure that the
information provided in EPDs is comparable and that
environmental assessments are performed in the same way and
yield the same results, no matter who does the analysis.
Moving forward, it is imperative that federal agencies when
developing building material preferences ensure that the
environmental and economic benefits are determined by embracing
LCA and the future use of EPDs. We applaud the leadership of
the Committee in holding this hearing and in helping to return
science to green building decisions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Talbot follows:]

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Chairman Broun. Thank you, Mr. Talbot. I want to thank all
of you all for your testimony here today, reminding Members
that Committee rules limit questioning to five minutes each.
The Chair at this point will open the first round of questions.
The Chair recognizes himself for five minutes.
Mr. Platt, you just heard Mr. Talbot's testimony. Why does
the LEED system not recognized life cycle analysis?
Mr. Platt. The LEED system is in the midst of being re-
renewed and evolved, and in the course of that, we made it very
clear that life cycle analysis is going to be a part of our
philosophy, and I commend Mr. Talbot for his commitment to
that. We discussed earlier evolution of that issue in Germany.
He was very impressed with that. We are trying to make sure the
global standard that we are also taking into account the life
cycle analysis study. That is controversial in some circles.
Some types of industries don't like looking at their products
except when they are in the building. They don't like looking
at the product when they are being manufactured or when they
are being disposed of. We are going to look at, I believe the
way this will evolve is, we will begin to look fully at the
life cycle and in that respect are impressed with what Mr.
Talbot said and what the Green Globes people have done.
Chairman Broun. Well, thank you. I believe that all cost
energy use in producing the products needs to be part of the
process of evaluation. We need the metrics and the data to
further that.
Mr. Hubbell, would you be willing to have a federal advisor
on your board of directors of the same seniority as Mr.
Kampschroer's deputy?
Mr. Hubbell. Yes, we would.
Chairman Broun. Have you asked GSA? And if so, what has
their response been?
Mr. Hubbell. We requested--I believe I am correct here--we
requested some time ago to have a GSA representative serve on
our board in a similar capacity as Don Horn was serving on the
board of the U.S. Green Building Council, and that request was
not accommodated.
Chairman Broun. Why?
Mr. Hubbell. I don't know.
Chairman Broun. Okay. Let me see if I can get an answer for
you in written questions.
Mr. Talbot, GSA currently has a policy that calls for new
construction to be LEED certified whereas other federal
agencies like the USDA have adopted multiple green building
rating systems. Why is it important to your business that
federal agencies open their policies to multiple green building
rating systems?
Mr. Talbot. The problem the hardwood industry has is that--
or should I say challenge--is only 80, or 20 percent of the
timberlands are FSC certified, and with the environmental and
economic conditions we are all going through as an industry and
the housing crash, it just isn't compatible for most of the
industry to supply these buildings because our case in point,
we are not FSC certified and we don't see the value in
investing those dollars in these economic times.
Chairman Broun. Do you think that FSC certification should
be abandoned as a parameter, as a metric in the green ratings?
Mr. Talbot. The way I look at it, is that the certification
piece is yesterday's news. I think the future should be based
on life cycle assessments and EPDs because it is how
efficiently one does it, and I think there shouldn't be one
system that is the system. It should be an open framework or
model and I think the market will take care of itself because,
you know, it is proven that American forests are the best
managed in the world and the hardwoods are doing and have done
for many, many generations what they have always done, and I
don't think we should have a stamp that it has to be one
certified body that controls that.
Chairman Broun. Very good. Mr. Platt was nodding his head
yes, and he said we are going to go to life cycle analysis, so
hopefully that will be in the near future that it is so.
Mr. Platt, USGBC went through the process of becoming an
accredited ANSI standards developing organization. Is USGBC now
committing to develop all of its standards according to those
ANSI rules?
Mr. Platt. USGBC has a process, Mr. Chairman, that works
extremely well, and we are nonetheless very eager to find out
any specific concerns that either this Committee has or others
have here about that process. Our process is one that is
extremely responsive to this huge demand to address continuous
requests for new systems, new standards. We are very, very,
very confident in our process. We have not had an overwhelming
demand from our membership, from the people that are using our
materials to have our--change our process. But again, having
said that, if there is something about ANSI review of our
process that would improve it, we would be very open to talking
to you and other members of the committee about that.
Chairman Broun. Well, that sounds like a no. My time is
expired.
Mr. Miller, you are recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I may overstate the case with respect to Dr. Scofield's
testimony, but he criticized sternly the research that lies
behind the representations that buildings are green or high-
performance green buildings, that that claim is simply kind of
marketing, it is vacuous puffery, saying a green building--a
building is a green building is like an advertisement saying
that Miller Beer has great taste, and is less filling. There
really is nothing to it.
Mr. Olgyay, is the----
Mr. Olgyay. Olgyay.
Mr. Miller. Olgyay. Excuse me. And I just heard it
pronounced repeatedly for Dr. Broun's benefit. Is that a fair
characterization of Rocky Mountain Institute's analysis of the
savings of green building design for the Empire State Building
or any other building?
Mr. Olgyay. I agree with Dr. Scofield in that, you know,
the rating system itself does not produce a high-performance
building. What the rating system does is, it encourages people,
and within any set of buildings, you will find high performers
and low performers. We like to focus on the high performers,
and we do feel that rating systems do end up raising the bar
for the lower performers. They can't basically get rated if
they don't do at least as well as the codes and the recognition
within the different rating systems require. So our experience
is that rating systems including, you know, the recommendations
in EISA are fantastic in pushing the process farther and
deeper, and again, the proof is in the pudding. You have to
actually look at how much the energy is saving and measure
that, and we find that when we do that and we actually go for
deep energy savings, it is very cost-effective and the rating
systems do encourage that.
Mr. Miller. Mr. Platt and Mr. Hubbell, there appears to be
criticisms of your rating systems. Do you embrace Dr.
Scofield's testimony or do you disagree with it? Mr. Hubbell,
Mr. Olgyay's testimony appeared to be that there is some value
but it certainly needs a lot of work. Mr. Platt.
Mr. Platt. Well, we are very----
Mr. Miller. Olgyay.
Mr. Platt. We are very, very confident in the state of the
record with respect to the value of LEED-certified buildings.
People don't have to do this. They do it voluntarily, and we
reference various standards including the Energy Star standard
and the Energy Star benchmarking process. More than half of the
1.7 million square feet a day that we certify is certified as
existing buildings that perform better than they did when they
began the process of becoming LEED certified, and those
buildings perform on average an Energy Star score of 86. That
means by definition, they are in the top 15 percentile of
performing buildings, and that includes the Empire State
Building, which is LEED Gold. It includes the Treasury Building
that I referred to that is LEED Gold. The performance level of
LEED buildings, and again, the majority of the square footage
are these existing buildings, is staggeringly impressive and
nobody--because of that alignment with Energy Star, nobody has
been claiming that that level of performance is not accurate.
Dr. Scofield, I am not a professor, so I won't take him on.
I will just say that his study does not--and I think, you know,
he fairly made that point--his study is only about new
buildings and a data set that is very stale. It is almost eight
years old, the actual buildings in the data set. So that is a
different story altogether.
Mr. Miller. Mr. Hubbell.
Mr. Hubbell. Yes. I would agree with Dr. Scofield that none
of us are perfect in documenting the performance of buildings
that we certify and so certainly we need to make improvements
there. I would take some issue, as Mr. Platt has, that we are
not doing it at all. We rely on Energy Star and we, for
example, in our energy performance section, you have to be 25
percent, the top 25 percent to even get points. That is based
on a Department of Energy database of real buildings. And so
our users can go--and it is called the CBECS database. Our
users can go in and they can plug in their building type, they
can look at what actual buildings are doing and they benchmark
against that. So we are doing some things right. We have got
things to learn. We have got improvements to make. And I would
say that is probably the case with both Mr. Platt and my
organization.
Mr. Platt. I associate myself fully with his ``we could
improve and do a lot better'' point.
Mr. Miller. Yes, I know. All right.
Chairman Broun. The gentleman's time has expired. If it
okay with you, I will ask one more question and let you ask one
more question and we will be done. How about that?
Mr. Miller. That is a deal, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Broun. Okay. Good.
Professor Scofield, has USGBC responded to your study of
their rating systems, and what about GSA or DOE and its
national labs?
Dr. Scofield. Well, let me first, if I can, respond to his
comment. It is absolutely correct that my work is totally
restricted to the LEED new construction buildings. It doesn't
address at all existing buildings, and I am encouraged by the
fact that they use Energy Star building scores as a way to test
performance.
In answer to your question, I have never had a response
from the U.S. Green Building Council, and I have had no
communication with the GSA.
Chairman Broun. Maybe after today you will. How about DOE?
You didn't respond to that.
Dr. Scofield. I have not.
Chairman Broun. And its national labs, too.
Dr. Scofield. Yeah, I have not had any communication
subsequent to the papers I have written with anybody from the
DOE.
Chairman Broun. Okay. Very good. Mr. Miller.
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will keep our
agreement to ask one question, but it will be to several
witnesses and in several parts.
Some of the agencies do use the LEED system for new
construction but not all of them. The USDA has adopted multiple
green building rating systems that includes LEED and Green
Globes, and that seemed to be what Dr. Hogan was saying
earlier, the Department of Energy wasn't just adopting any set
of third-party ratings from the private sector, they were kind
of picking and choosing cafeteria style. Do you think it is
important that there be one rating system? Well, first of all,
do you think the government should promulgate their own
standards or do something more like what OSHA initially did
with ANSI standards, workplace safety standards? Should
government adopt their own standards or is it important that
there be one set of ratings or can they be picked from
cafeteria style? And that is to the entire panel, anyone who
wishes to address it.
Dr. Scofield. Well, let me jump in to say that I think the
rating systems do a lot of good things to encourage good
building practices, and they have some success. I would like to
see the government augment any rating system with a fundamental
standard on performance. It is a question of closing the loop.
We can think we are making energy-efficient buildings based on
simulations and folklore but the bottom line is, what is the
measured primary energy performance? And if we don't close the
loop properly, you end up with this Lake Woebegone effect where
we think we are above average, but somehow we are using more
energy. And so I think that would be the thing for the
government to do would be to add a really critical performance
standard that I don't see in any of the rating systems.
Mr. Miller. Okay. Mr. Platt.
Mr. Platt. LEED is a completely voluntary system and it was
developed to be used in a flexible way. One of the challenges
of the user of the--as a government is that it will have all
kinds of other pressures and concerns, sometimes very
appropriately, placed on it, but as far as the government
deciding, I believe they should decide, you know, building by
building, situation by situation, what is the appropriate--or
portfolio by portfolio in some cases. But really, the USGBC is
not here to say that everybody should use LEED every moment in
every context.
Mr. Miller. Tom Talbot.
Mr. Talbot. To take this a little different way, if you
look at environment product declaration, or an EPD, and it is
all done by math, and you talk about the energy consumption
from the woods to the transportation to the dry kiln to the
transportation to the sawmill, all of that is mathematical, and
if an EPD no matter whether it is wood, concrete, steel or
aluminum, is the basis, you will get the numbers you really
need because it all becomes math, and it takes the emotion out
of it. So all I can say is, as long as there is an EPD model in
this, you will win, and the taxpayer will win.
Mr. Miller. Mr. Hubbell.
Mr. Hubbell. Sure. Thanks. Generally speaking, I think
competition is a good thing. I think it drives down cost and
improves quality, and that is not just in this instance, it is
in all instances, and that has been proven since the beginning
of time. So I think that is a good thing. Multiple systems are
good. I think the Federal Government is doing a good thing by
drafting their own benchmarks, the federal guiding principles.
What you are doing there is, you are establishing a hurdle and
you are telling the rest of us to go jump over it, and that is,
I think, a good thing.
Frankly, my own personal opinion is, I think that this
industry that we are in is in the process and should be in the
process of being commoditized. Green building certification
shouldn't be expensive. Every dollar you pay me to tell you
about your building is a dollar you can't spend improving your
building. There is nothing magic about hanging a plaque on a
wall. We want to drive the cost as low as possible and still
provide a credible assessment so that people can upgrade their
HVAC systems, they can add more insulation, they can improve
their doors and windows, and so that is how--I think that is
the path we are on and I think it is a good path.
Chairman Broun. The gentleman's time is expired.
I want to thank you all for you all's valuable testimony
here today and the Members for their questions. The Members of
the Subcommittee may have additional questions for the
witnesses, and we ask for you to respond to these in writing.
Please do so as expeditiously as possible and as verbosely as
possible. The record will remain open for two weeks for
additional comments by Members. The witnesses are excused and
the hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:32 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

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Appendix 2

----------

Additional Material for the Record

Green Building Certification Systems Hearing Follow-Up Items

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Written Testimony of Ronald E. Jarnagin, Former ASHRAE President

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Statement for the Record on Behalf of the National Association of Home
Builders

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Statement for the Record by Subcommittee Ranking Member Paul D. Tonko

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