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View of a Healthier Future

Editor's Note: Howard A. Learner is President and Executive Director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center based in Chicago, IL.

Recently the Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC) and a group of Chicago-area public health and environmental leaders sat down with Chair Nancy Sutley and Representative Danny Davis (IL-7) to discuss the Administration's work to protect clean air, the Great Lakes and our environment. From the ELPC's office in downtown Chicago where the meeting was held, we have a view of the Chicago River, the blue-green waters of Lake Michigan, and the smokestacks of an old coal plant along the shoreline on the Illinois/Indiana border.

Many Midwest coal plants were built back in the Eisenhower and Kennedy years, and have not yet been retrofitted with modern pollution control equipment. These plants continue to emit large amounts of pollutants that harm public health. In particular, coal plants are the largest source of mercury pollution in the Great Lakes. Public health officials have issued "mercury advisories" for almost every river, lake and stream in the Midwest/Great Lakes states. It's become the reality that people are warned not to eat the fish they catch.

Mercury is a neurotoxin that, when ingested by pregnant women who eat contaminated fish, enters the bloodstream, crosses the placental barrier and impairs fetal brain development, thereby causing mental and physical harms. Installing modern and widely-available pollution control technologies can reduce more than 90% of the mercury pollution that is harming both children's health and our environment. 

At our meeting, Chair Sutley discussed the importance of EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, issued last week, that provide both economic and environmental benefits while protecting public health and the Great Lakes. These are the first national standards to require use of modern control technologies to reduce mercury, arsenic, lead, hydrochloric acid and other hazardous air pollutants from coal plants. These standards were called for by the Clean Air Act Amendments more than 20 years ago and level the playing field for the many utilities that have already invested in modern mercury pollution control technologies. 

In 2006 the Illinois Pollution Control Board adopted mercury pollution standards of its own, which required all coal plants to install technologies to reduce mercury pollution by 90% or more by 2009 and 2013. As expected, some coal plant owners made the same overblown arguments about reliability threats, costs and so forth that we are now hearing again. What then happened in Illinois? The coal plant owners complied, mercury pollution dropped significantly, the lights stayed on, utility rates didn't go up, and there was no a wave of plants shutting down. Most importantly, the health and safety of our children was protected. 

A broad coalition of medical, public health, outdoor recreation, environmental, faith-based and community organizations have come together to support the Administration's adoption of the EPA Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. Implementing these pollution reduction standards are proven to improve public health, create new jobs, drive technological innovations and transition our nation to a cleaner energy future. 

Simply put, it's time to move forward with these common sense standards to protect children's health and our rivers and Great Lakes for all.

Howard A. Learner is President and Executive Director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center based in Chicago, IL

At Treasury, Green is Our Favorite Color – But We'll Take (LEED) Gold!

Editor’s Note: This blog was cross-posted from the U.S. Department of the Treasury Blog.

When you think about a “green” building, you probably don’t picture a centuries-old National Historic Landmark that’s lined with columns and made of thousands of tons of granite.

Well, maybe that’s about to change. I'm pleased to announce that the Treasury Building – which dates back to the 19th century and is located right next door to the White House – received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) at a ceremony today in our historic Grant Room.

According to the USGBC, the Treasury Building is believed to be the oldest building in the world to receive LEED certification. The fact that the home of much our nation’s financial history has achieved this distinction for environmental leadership really adds new meaning to the term ‘green’ building.

LEED is a leading international standard for the design, construction, and operation of high-performance green buildings. The Treasury Building received its LEED Gold certification based on a number of green construction and operation features, including:

•Increasing the use of natural day lighting to reduce energy consumption;
•Establishing sustainable cleaning and landscape programs;
•Developing and implementing advanced control and management of the heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems;
•Conducting waste stream audits to benchmark recycling programs and identify opportunities to maximize material conservation;
•Creating a green procurement program for materials, equipment and services purchased
•Increasing occupant space utilization;
•Augmenting alternate transportation means; and
•Establishing enhanced utility metering for improved systems management

These improvements are paying big dividends. Not just for the environment, but also for the Department’s bottom line – because going green saves green for taxpayers. Project results, which are producing an estimated $3.5 million in energy and lease cost savings annually, include:

•A 43 percent decrease in the use of potable water
•A 7 percent decrease in electrical usage
•A 53 percent decrease in the use of steam
•The addition of 164 additional workstations within the building

The fact that we’ve been able to achieve those types of results is particularly significant given the unique historical and architectural features of the Treasury Building.

The Treasury Building is more than two city blocks long and was constructed over a period of 33 years between 1836 and 1869. The east and center wings – which comprise the oldest portion of the structure – were designed by Robert Mills, architect of the Washington Monument, and were built between 1836 to 1842. It’s the third-oldest federal building in Washington D.C., after the White House and the U.S. Capitol, and was named a National Historic Landmark in 1972.

We’re proud of the improvements we’ve made around the Treasury Building – both big and small – to help reduce our environmental footprint and save taxpayer dollars. They’re part of a broader Administration-wide effort, which includes President Obama’s recent $2 billion commitment to energy upgrades of federal buildings using long term energy savings to pay for up-front costs, at no cost to taxpayers.

But Treasury’s environmental initiatives represent just a few of the steps we’ve taken to cut waste and improve efficiency.

•We’re continuing to transition to electronic payments for federal beneficiaries and retirees, which will save more than $500 million over the first five years. That also has a significant environmental benefit by converting approximately 135 million paper check payments to electronic payments per year.
•Last week, Vice President Biden and Secretary Geithner announced that the United States Mint is suspending production of surplus Presidential $1 Coins for circulation, which will save at least $50 million annually over the next several years.
•The Department’s work to increase e-filing of tax returns will save more than $100 million over five years.
•A set of projects we’re implementing to consolidate IT services will save an estimated $125 million over five years.
•Earlier this year, Treasury received “green” ratings across-the-board on its energy and sustainability scorecard from the Office of Management and Budget and White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Of course, we’re not satisfied with those initiatives alone. And, moving forward, we’ll continue to work to identify additional ways to save money for taxpayers and improve our Department’s environmental efficiency. (As you might be able to tell, we’re pretty competitive when it comes to our environmental sustainability efforts here at Treasury.)

For now, though, receiving LEED GOLD certification is a certainly welcome achievement and represents the culmination of a lot of hard work by a number of dedicated public servants here at the Department.

At Treasury, green is our favorite color – but we’ll take gold!

Dan Tangherlini is Assistant Secretary for Management, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Performance Officer, and Director of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.