Issue Position: Green Office Initiative

Issue Position

As part of an ongoing collaboration between public policy, research institutions and the business community to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency, I launched my Green Office Initiative. As a member of Congress, I must lead by example and not just talk about renewable energy. This initiative is good for national security, good for jobs and good for the climate. To fully wean ourselves from foreign oil and promote energy independence we must take action.

There are three parts to my Green Office Initiative:

1. Becoming Green: My Congressional office is carbon neutral. This was achieved by first calculating the CO2 produced in running the day-to-day activities of a Congressional office including air travel, daily commuting and driving to district events along with the heating, cooling and electricity used in both offices. We estimated 72 tons of CO2 were produced by my office activities in 2009. My office purchased Carbon Offsets from the Governor's Energy Office's Colorado Carbon Fund to offset this CO2.

2. Working Green: The building in which our 7th Congressional District Office is located is LEED-EB Certified (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design-Existing Building) and has a 30kw photovoltaic (PV) on the roof to provide a portion of the building's energy needs. To view the solar energy that is currently being produced by the photovoltaic panels on the roof of my District Office please visit this website: Click here to view the amount of solar energy being generated.

3. Promoting Green: As chair of the Energy Efficiency Task Force in the House Financial Services Committee, I sponsored H.R. 2336 - the GREEN Act and support ideas in Congress to promote energy efficiency. The Task Force is meeting with groups and individuals to formulate ways to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy in the financial services community.

* Greening the Capital Initiative

In the 110th and 111th Congress, along with members of the Colorado Congressional Delegation and House leadership, I helped secure an increase in funding to the Department of Energy for programs that fund NREL(National Renewable Energy Laboratory) in Golden. This is the flagship renewable energy research facility in the country and is located in the 7th Congressional District. Due to these funding increases they have hired hundreds of new employees and are increasing and improving their research facilites and infrastructure.

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