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108th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. 2620
To provide for the establishment of an Office of High-Performance Green
Buildings, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
July 8, 2004
Mr. Jeffords (for himself, Mr. Lautenberg, Mr. Reid, Mr. Wyden, Mr.
Carper, Mr. Harkin, Mr. Leahy, and Mrs. Clinton) introduced the
following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on
Environment and Public Works
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To provide for the establishment of an Office of High-Performance Green
Buildings, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``High-Performance
Green Buildings Act''.
(b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents of this Act is as
follows:
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Findings.
Sec. 3. Definitions.
TITLE I--OFFICE OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE GREEN BUILDINGS
Sec. 101. Oversight.
Sec. 102. Office of High-Performance Green Buildings.
Sec. 103. Interagency Steering Committee.
Sec. 104. Public outreach.
Sec. 105. Research and development.
Sec. 106. Budget and life-cycle costing.
Sec. 107. Authorization of appropriations.
TITLE II--HEALTHY HIGH-PERFORMANCE SCHOOLS
Sec. 201. Grants for schools.
Sec. 202. Federal guidelines for siting of school facilities.
Sec. 203. Education research program.
Sec. 204. Authorization of appropriations.
TITLE III--STRENGTHENING FEDERAL LEADERSHIP
Sec. 301. General Accounting Office.
TITLE IV--DEMONSTRATION PROJECT
Sec. 401. Coordination of goals.
Sec. 402. Authorization of appropriations.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds that--
(1) buildings have profound impacts on the environment,
energy use, and health of individuals, and numerous studies
suggest that building environments affect worker productivity;
(2) buildings in the United States consume 37 percent of
the energy, 68 percent of the electricity, and 12 percent of
the potable water used in the United States, and overall
construction of buildings (including construction of related
infrastructure) consumes 60 percent of all raw materials used
in the economy of the United States (excluding materials used
for food or fuel);
(3) in the United States, buildings generate--
(A) 40 percent of the nonindustrial waste stream;
(B) 31 percent of the mercury in municipal solid
waste; and
(C) 35 percent of the carbon dioxide (the primary
greenhouse gas associated with climate change), 49
percent of the sulfur dioxide, and 25 percent of the
nitrogen oxides found in the air;
(4) buildings contribute to the ``heat island effect'' by
eliminating vegetative cover and using paving and roofing
materials that absorb heat and raise ambient temperatures,
accelerating the reaction that forms ground-level ozone;
(5) according to the Environmental Protection Agency, on
average, people in the United States spend approximately 90
percent of their time indoors, where the concentration of
pollutants may be 2 to 5 times and, in some cases, 100 times,
higher than pollution concentrations in outdoor air;
(6) the Centers for Disease Control and the Environmental
Protection Agency have connected poor indoor air quality to
significantly elevated rates of mortality;
(7) health impacts from building materials, such as
adhesives, paints, carpeting, and pressed-wood products, which
may emit pollutants such as formaldehyde or other volatile
organic compounds, are still uncertain but are believed to be
potentially significant;
(8) according to the Building Owners and Managers
Association, because costs relating to employees, at $130 per
square foot annually (including health insurance costs), are by
far the highest business costs of a building, as opposed to
total energy costs at $1.81 per square foot, measures to
improve the indoor air quality of a building can be an
important investment in reducing long-term employee costs;
(9) the use of energy efficient systems and alternative
sources of energy--
(A) reduces building costs; and
(B) improves the security of the United States by
ensuring continuing operations despite any potential
interruptions in the primary energy supply of the
United States as a result of terrorism or other
disruptions of the electricity grid;
(10) by integrating issues relating to natural resource
use, human health, materials use, transportation needs, and
other concerns into planning the life cycle of a building,
architects, designers, and developers can construct buildings
that--
(A) are healthier for occupants;
(B) reduce environmental impacts; and
(C) are less wasteful of resources;
(11) a well-designed high-performance green building can be
less expensive to build and operate throughout the lifetime of
the building than a building that is not a high-performance
green building;
(12) in 2003, in the document entitled ``The Federal
Commitment to Green Building: Experiences and Expectations'',
the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive found that
``[t]here is a mixture of diverse Federal green building
mandates in law, regulation, and Executive Orders, but not one
definitive, clear, and unified policy statement on
environmental design. Many within the Federal government are
working on green buildings, but additional coordination and
integration are needed.'';
(13) a central coordinating Federal authority for green
buildings would increase efficiency of, improve communication
between, and reduce duplication within green building programs;
and
(14) the General Services Administration, as the largest
civilian landlord in the United States, managing more than
8,300 buildings owned or leased by the United States, is the
appropriate agency to provide Federal agency coordination of
green building programs.
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Administrator.--The term ``Administrator'' means the
Administrator of General Services.
(2) Committee.--The term ``Committee'' means the steering
committee established under section 103(a).
(3) High-performance green building.--The term ``high-
performance green building'' means a building the life cycle of
which--
(A) increases the efficiency with which the
building--
(i) reduces energy, water, and material
resource use;
(ii) improves indoor environmental quality,
reduces indoor pollution, improves thermal
comfort, and improves lighting and noise
environments that affect occupant health and
productivity;
(iii) reduces negative impacts on the
environment throughout the life cycle of the
building, including air and water pollution and
waste generation;
(iv) increases the use of environmentally
preferable products, including biobased,
recycled content, and nontoxic products with
lower life-cycle impacts;
(v) reduces the negative impacts of
emissions under the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C.
7401 et seq.);
(vi) integrates systems in the building;
and
(vii) reduces the environmental impacts of
transportation through building location and
site design that support a full range of
transportation choices for users of the
building;
(B) considers indoor and outdoor impacts of the
building on human health and the environment,
including--
(i) improvements in worker productivity;
(ii) the life-cycle impacts of building
materials and operations; and
(iii) other factors that the Office
considers to be appropriate.
(4) High-performance school.--The term ``high-performance
school'' has the meaning given the term ``healthy, high-
performance school building'' in section 5586 of the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 7277e).
(5) Life cycle.--The term ``life cycle'', with respect to a
high-performance green building, means all stages of the useful
life of the high-performance green building (including
components, equipment, systems, and controls of the building)
beginning at conception of a green building project and
continuing through siting, design, construction, landscaping,
commissioning, operation, maintenance, renovation,
deconstruction, and removal of the green building.
(6) Life cycle assessment.--The term ``life cycle
assessment'' means a comprehensive system approach for
measuring the environmental performance of a product or service
that includes an analysis of the environmental impacts of--
(A) each stage in the life of the product or
service (including acquisition of raw materials,
product manufacture, transportation, installation,
operation and maintenance, and waste management); and
(B) each component of the product or service.
(7) Life-cycle costing.--The term ``life-cycle costing'',
with respect to a high-performance green building, means an
analysis of economic costs of impacts and choices made
regarding materials used and activities carried out with
respect to the life cycle of the high-performance green
building.
(8) Local educational agency.--The term ``local educational
agency'' has the meaning given the term in section 9101 of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C.
7801).
(9) Office.--The term ``Office'' means the Office of High-
Performance Green Buildings established under section 102(a).
TITLE I--OFFICE OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE GREEN BUILDINGS
SEC. 101. OVERSIGHT.
(a) In General.--The Administrator shall establish within the
General Services Administration, and appoint an appropriate individual
to, a position in the career-reserved Senior Executive service to--
(1) establish and oversee the Office of High-Performance
Green Buildings in accordance with section 102; and
(2) carry out other duties as required under this Act.
(b) Compensation.--The compensation of the individual appointed
under subsection (a) shall not exceed the maximum rate of basic pay for
the Senior Executive Service under section 5382 of title 5, United
States Code, including any applicable locality-based comparability
payment that may be authorized under section 5304(h)(2)(C) of that
title.
SEC. 102. OFFICE OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE GREEN BUILDINGS.
(a) Establishment.--The individual appointed under section 101(a),
in partnership with the Administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency, the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive, the
Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of
Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Secretary of Health
and Human Services, the Director of the Office of Management and
Budget, and heads of other relevant Federal agencies, shall establish
within the General Services Administration an Office of High-
Performance Green Buildings.
(b) Duties.--The Office shall--
(1) ensure full coordination and collaboration with all
relevant agencies;
(2) establish a senior-level Federal interagency steering
committee in accordance with section 103;
(3) provide information through--
(A) outreach;
(B) education;
(C) the provision of technical assistance; and
(D) the development of a national high-performance
green building clearinghouse in accordance with section
104;
(4) provide for research and development relating to high-
performance green building initiatives under section 105(a);
(5) in partnership with the Comptroller General, review and
analyze budget and life-cycle costing issues in accordance with
section 106;
(6) complete and submit a report in accordance with
subsection (c); and
(7) carry out implementation plans described in subsection
(d).
(c) Report.--Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of
this Act, and biennially thereafter, the Office shall submit to
Congress and the Comptroller General a report that--
(1) describes the status of the implementation of programs
under this Act and other Federal programs in effect as of the
date of the report, including--
(A) the extent to which the programs are being
carried out in accordance with this Act; and
(B) the status of funding requests and
appropriations for those programs;
(2) identifies steps within the planning, budgeting, and
construction process of Federal facilities that inhibit new and
existing Federal facilities from becoming high-performance
green buildings, as measured by--
(A) a silver rating, as defined by the Leadership
in Energy and Environmental Design Building Rating
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