PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Additional energy-saving requirements could be coming to federal agencies soon through climate change legislation working its way through Congress.

The House passed the 1,400-page American Clean Energy and Security Act in June, while the Senate will begin tackling its version in earnest next month.

The main thrust of the bill would establish a cap-and-trade system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But many other components of the legislation would directly affect federal agencies, said Shelley Fidler, who oversaw federal environmental policies in the Clinton administration and is now a principal at Van Ness Feldman, a Washington law firm.

"Climate and energy legislation will affect the way we do our jobs in the federal government," Fidler said here last week during the GovEnergy conference, which was attended by more than 3,000 federal energy managers and industry representatives.

For starters, the bill could set new renewable energy targets for agencies. The House-passed bill would require agencies to obtain 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and stay at that level for the next 20 years. Currently, agencies are required under the 2005 Energy Policy Act to obtain 7.5 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2013.

The Senate bill doesn't include the provision, so it's unclear if it will survive the conference process.

Several provisions are almost guaranteed to be included in the final bill since they're included in both the House and Senate versions. These provisions would:

• Create a nationwide market for trading renewable energy certificates (RECs), which are commodities created through the generation of renewable energy. Nineteen states currently have REC programs; by expanding them nationwide, agencies will be better able to meet their renewable energy goals because of the increased market for new renewable energy sources, Fidler said.

• Remove a disincentive for agencies to generate renewable energy on their property.

Currently, agencies that produce renewable energy on site but sell that energy to local utilities or other consumers, rather than using it, don't receive any renewable energy credit toward the Energy Policy Act mandate.

However, agencies that generate renewable energy and use it on site receive two credits, an anomaly that's known within agencies as the "double or nothing" credit. The climate bill would give agencies credit for creating new energy sources, even if they don't need the energy themselves or must sell the RECs generated by the renewable energy source to pay for construction.

• Set higher energy-efficiency targets for commercial and residential buildings under national building code standards.

Since October, new federal construction must be 30 percent more energy efficient than required under existing building codes. The climate bill would apply this 30 percent standard to all buildings immediately, increase the standard to 50 percent by 2015 and then raise the standard an additional 5 percent every three years through 2030.

Increasing the standard will help federal agencies meet their energy-efficiency targets and get closer to achieving the 2030 goal of building facilities free of fossil fuels, as required under the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act.

Lots of paperwork

The climate change bill also comes with its share of new reporting requirements. Some or all agencies will be required to report on, among other things, the percentage of renewable electricity purchased each year, the environmental impacts of carbon sequestration activities, the environmental impacts of vehicles powered by natural gas and the potential for increasing hydroelectric power generation at federal facilities.

Brian Lally jokes that the acronym for his job as the Pentagon's facilities energy director and utilities privatization accurately signifies his mood these days regarding all of the reporting requirements agencies must endure.

"I am ‘fed up,' " Lally said. "It appears as though we might be spinning the Department of Defense and the rest of the agencies on nothing but a web of reporting and reporting and reporting."

Still, Lally said he believes Congress' intent is not to drown agencies in reporting requirements but to increase the government's ability to generate and purchase clean energy.

"There are lots of reporting requirements, but there's a lot of goodness that can come out of it," he said.

Meeting the current and forthcoming requirements to curb greenhouse gas emissions will require agencies to look beyond individual buildings, said Kevin Kampshroer, acting director of General Services Administration's Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings.

"Our buildings don't sit alone," Kampshroer said. "When we begin to consider our buildings in the context of neighborhoods, things open up."

Kampshroer's office is working with industry partners to develop minimum building code requirements for green facilities, which will be the first time such requirements are included in the national building codes for residential and commercial construction.

The office also is looking for buildings to use in a demonstration project, funded by GSA and the Energy Department, which will study the science behind high-performance improvements made to buildings to determine what works and what doesn't.

"There's much less information about how these technologies work when they're integrated in a building in practical use," he said.

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