Testimony of Eliza Cava
Sierra Club District of Columbia Chapter
Budget Hearing on the Department of General Services
Committee on Facilities
June 12, 2025
Councilmember Lewis George, thank you for the opportunity to testify at this budget hearing on the Department of General Services. My name is Eliza Cava, and I am a Ward 4 resident and Conservation Chair of the Sierra Club District of Columbia Chapter. The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In DC, we represent about 7,000 residents across all eight wards.
ENERGY
The District government should lead the way for the private sector on energy and climate issues. Rather than progress, the Sierra Club sees major backsliding in the mayor’s budget proposals for the Department of General Services. A few bright spots remain.\
Mayor raids the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund to pay DC’s utility bills
We strongly condemn the mayor’s plan to sweep more than $70 million ($70.102 million) from the Sustainable Energy Trust fund to pay the DC government’s utility bills in FY26. That amount is close to three-quarters of the fund. The mayor proposes to take more than $80M annually from the fund in subsequent years.
The DC Council created the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund (SETF) to provide funding for sustainable energy programs administered by the Department of Energy and the Environment. In response to the needs and requests of community members, the council has added new programs, including the Healthy Homes Act, which specifically assists low- and moderate income residents.
We realize it will be extremely difficult for this committee to return $70 million to the Department of Energy and the Environment (DOEE) budget, but we encourage you to return as much as possible. At least $18 million needs to be restored to DOEE to match federal funds that DC has ready to go to fund residential electrification and energy efficiency projects. If the Council does not restore at least $18 million to projects intended to fund SETF projects, you are choosing to return money to President Trump and DOGE that could be used to lower energy costs and improve indoor air quality for DC residents.
Mayor eviscerates efficiency and net zero energy standards
At the same time as the mayor raids sustainable energy funding to pay the District government’s utility bills, she proposes to delay or terminate programs to increase the energy efficiency of DC government buildings.
Greener Government Buildings Act: The mayor proposes to weaken and significantly delay the Greener Government Buildings Act (GGBA). This law requires buildings owned by the District, or with significant DC government funding, to be net-zero energy, meaning buildings that are highly energy efficient, powered by electricity from renewable sources like wind and solar power, and do not burn any fossil fuels like methane gas. The requirement applies to new and substantially renovated buildings.
Councilmember Lewis George, the Sierra Club asks that you strike the changes to the GGBA from the mayor’s budget. The Fiscal Impact Statement for FY26 Budget Support Act identifies three projects that will require more funding, a total of $9.2 million in the capital budget, to meet net zero energy requirements if the GGBA requirements remain in place.
The capital budget includes funding for hundreds of millions of dollars in capital projects, and we have been heard that finding funding in the capital budget to plug the $9.2 million gap, either through value engineering or delaying a few projects, should not be hard. We encourage this committee to obtain a detailed explanation from DGS of why the costs of these buildings have increased from the original estimates and to work with the Committee on Facilities to find the funding necessary to maintain the Greener Government Buildings Act. If it is too difficult to allocate the necessary funding, DGS can request and receive an exemption from the net zero energy requirements through the existing waiver process. There is no need to repeal the entire law.
Building Energy Performance Standards: The mayor proposes to delay the Building Energy Performance Standards, known as BEPS, by six years. This program to improve the energy efficiency of large buildings includes DC government buildings as well as private buildings. The Sierra Club is asking Councilmember Allen to strike the delay of BEPS from the mayor’s Budget Support Act. While the mayor has for years failed to provide funding for DGS to implement these energy efficiency requirements for large buildings, DGS is now exercising some initiative in this area via an energy savings performance contract. We encourage this committee to follow Councilmember Allen’s lead and support the reinstatement of BEPS. We also ask you to ensure DGS has the resources needed to save DC taxpayer money by making DC government buildings more energy efficient.
DGS moves forward with Energy Savings Performance Contract
Standard budgeting practices can pose an obstacle to improving energy efficiency in buildings. This is because the additional expense of energy efficient features comes out of the capital budget, while the energy savings accrue to the operational budget.
As we have testified in past hearings, Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPCs) can help solve this budgetary problem. ESPCs are a mechanism used to pay for today’s facility upgrades with tomorrow's energy savings–without tapping the capital budget. An ESPC is a partnership between an energy service company (an ESCO) and a facility owner such as DGS. The ESCO designs and installs energy savings measures. Savings are monitored and verified, and the facility owner reimburses the ESCO over a certain number of years out of operating budgets based on lower energy costs as a result of the efficiency measures.
The Sierra Club applauds DGS for developing the DC government’s first Energy Savings Performance Contract, We thank the Council for approving the award of the preliminary contract to CMTA, Inc., on April 3 of this year. The energy efficiency upgrades that will be executed under this contract will not only save taxpayers’ money by reducing energy costs, but also improve indoor air quality and comfort for the occupants of DC buildings.
Ideally, the budget should provide additional funding so that the contractor can also include some electrification measures as it executes the efficiency improvements.
Solar power for the DC government
The Sierra Club commends DGS for installing, with the District’s power purchase agreement (PPA) partners, three new solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in FY24. In February, DGS’s responses to this committee’s oversight questions noted that DGS was working with the Office of the Attorney General to finalize a large new PPA to cover 27 sites. We don’t see this contract showing up for Council approval yet and urge DGS to move swiftly to finalize this agreement in time to qualify for federal credits, which are likely to be reduced or even eliminated by Congress in the near future.
Composting in Public Schools
The Zero Waste DC Plan released by the Mayor in February 2024 called for recycling and compost services available city-wide by 2025 in all government buildings, including public schools. We are therefore disappointed to see the nearly $3 million reduction in funds budgeted for energy and environment conservation efforts at DC Public Schools. Does the increase in funds for waste management include funds for composting in schools? Although the budgeted amount is $2.2 million higher than the FY25 approved funds, it is still lower than actual expenditures in FY24.
Making progress on this goal is clearly feasible: DGS provided composting in public schools 10 years ago, when composting was not nearly as familiar or widespread as it is now. DGS’s own website celebrates the 252 tons of organic waste that were diverted from incinerators or landfills in FY15, and the 61 schools that participated in FY16-17. We should not be moving backward: composting should be a permanent, routine part of operations in all buildings, not a program we have to constantly reestablish. The success of the curbside compost program demonstrates that DC residents are eager and able to participate in composting. DGS should step up to ensure that composting education begins in the schools. We can avoid sending hundreds of pounds of food waste per school per day to landfills (where they generate methane pollution, contributing to climate change that will affect our children) and incinerators (where they generate particulate pollution, causing more children to develop asthma).
The District Bottle Bill Is Self-Funding
Councilmember Lewis George, please also allow me to thank you for co-introducing the District Recycling Refund and Litter Reduction Amendment Act of 2025, commonly referred to as the bottle bill. We expect that Council will hold a hearing on this groundbreaking legislation later this year. We wanted to take the opportunity of this budget oversight hearing to note that the bottle bill is a self-funding program, paid for by the beverage companies whose packaging choices have caused massive litter in the District. Even start-up costs that the Department of Energy and the Environment (DOEE) might incur to set up the program’s administrative processes (such as the beverage companies’ registration fee) will be reimbursed by the beverage companies, and paid back into the General Fund. The bottle bill will also generate funds, through unclaimed deposits, to fund DOEE’s expenses, other environmental programs, and to ensure the program is equitably implemented, with ease of return for all District residents.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify at this hearing.