Testimony of Lara Levison
Sierra Club District of Columbia Chapter
Budget Hearing on the Department of Energy and the Environment
Committee on Transportation and the Environment
June 13, 2025
Introduction
Councilmember Allen, thank you for the opportunity to testify at this budget hearing on the Department of Energy and the Environment, and thank you for your strong leadership on environment and sustainability issues. My name is Lara Levison, and I am the chair of the Sierra Club District of Columbia Chapter’s Energy Committee. 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.
Mayor Bowser has presented the Council with a trickle-down economics budget. Her budget proposal embodies the false concept that favoring the wealthy and corporations with tax breaks and subsidies will eventually benefit people on the lower end of the economic spectrum. The mayor’s proposal to slash the budget for the Department of Energy and the Environment (DOEE) by close to a quarter (24%) reflects this trickle-down economics mindset, since many of the programs targeted for reduction or elimination benefit lower-income residents and small community-based enterprises.
Mayor Bowser also proposes to delay or eliminate many of the climate and clean energy laws passed in recent years by the DC Council, thanks to the leadership of champions like you, and your partnership with community leaders. The Sierra Club strongly condemns these sweeping and destructive rollbacks of the District’s environmental policies and funding, and we urge you to reverse them to the greatest extent possible.
ENERGY
Mayor eviscerates the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund
We vehemently object to the Mayor’s plan to sweep more than $70 million ($70.1 million) from the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund (SETF) to pay the DC government’s utility bills in FY26. That amount is close to three-quarters of the fund. In subsequent years, the mayor proposes to take more than $80 million annually from the fund to pay the government’s energy bills. She also proposes to transfer another $3.2 million from the SETF to the General Fund in FY26, and to raid any remaining fund balances at the end of each year into the General Fund.
The mayor’s plundering of the SETF violates the purpose of the fund, which derives its revenue from small charges paid by each electricity and gas customer on our utility bills. As the name indicates, the DC Council created the “Sustainable Energy Trust Fund” to bring the benefits of clean and affordable energy to District residents. The SETF programs are administered by DOEE, and many of them specifically benefit low- and moderate income residents. They play an important role in keeping Black families in their homes and sustaining DC’s historic racial diversity.
Coupled with legislative changes in the Budget Support Act, the plundering of the SETF will leave only $24.7 million in the fund. The result will be steep funding reductions or elimination of the following critical initiatives:
- The Healthy Homes Act to electrify the homes of 30,000 low- and moderate income residents to lower their utility bills, improve indoor air quality, and cut climate pollution;
- The DC Sustainable Energy Utility (DCSEU), which implements many of the District’s energy efficiency programs that reduce utility bills;
- The Affordable Housing Retrofit Accelerator, which provides technical and financial assistance to improve energy efficiency in large multifamily buildings that provide affordable housing and lowers housing costs;
- The DC Green Bank, which would receive only $3.5 million, compared to $7 million last year;
- Training for good-paying local green jobs;
- Support to other DC agencies to improve the District government’s energy efficiency and use of clean renewable energy; and
- Necessary costs for DOEE to do its job.
We realize it will be challenging to restore $70 million to the Department of Energy and the Environment (DOEE) budget, but we urge you to coordinate with other committees and Chairman Mendelson to restore as much as possible.
To make it clear to electricity and gas customers that the mayor is placing a tax on our utility bills, specifically to pay the District government’s utility bills, we propose that the SETF fee on utility bills be split into two separate line items on utility bills. We recommend that the Council label only the portion of the SETF going to sustainable energy uses as the “Sustainable Energy Trust Fund.” For the larger portion that the mayor raids for general fund purposes, we recommend renaming it “Mayor Bowser’s Energy Tax.”
Mayor defunds the Healthy Homes Act
With your leadership, the Council passed the Healthy Homes Act, which established a program to provide thirty thousand low- and moderate-income households in the District with no-cost electrification home retrofits. Funding from the SETF is essential though not sufficient to fund this program. Not only does the mayor propose to take away funding for the Healthy Homes Act, she also makes implementation of the law simply optional. The large number of witnesses at this hearing who are here to speak to the benefits of the Healthy Homes Act demonstrates the depth of support for this program, which will cut climate pollution and hazardous indoor air pollution, improving public health and saving money.
Mayor launches another attack on Building Energy Performance Standards
In what has unfortunately become an annual ritual, the mayor has again launched an attack on the Building Energy Performance Standards, known as BEPS. Enacted in 2018 in the Clean Energy DC Omnibus Amendment Act and signed into law by Mayor Bowser at a grand signing ceremony, BEPS forms an essential cornerstone of DC’s climate and clean energy policies. BEPS will increase the energy efficiency of large buildings in the District, significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions and playing an essential role toward achieving the District’s climate commitments.
BEPS was the first of its kind in the nation, and as DOEE moved forward with implementation, it became apparent that some adjustments were needed. An advisory task force developed a set of recommendations, and the Council adopted them last year. The mayor’s proposed delay is gratuitous and unnecessary. It is also unfair to building owners and managers who are already working to comply. We urge this committee to drop the delay of BEPS entirely.
Mayor attacks net zero energy building codes
The mayor’s budget delays and weakens the District’s law that requires net zero energy standards in the near future for buildings classified as commercial. The Clean Energy DC Building Code Act (Bill 24-420), passed unanimously by the DC Council and signed by the mayor in 2022, requires that starting in 2026, all newly constructed and substantially renovated commercial buildings in DC, whether privately or publicly owned, be net zero energy.
A net zero building generates energy on-site over the course of a year equal to the amount of energy the building consumes over the course of a year. It minimizes its energy consumption through efficiency measures while maximizing its generation of renewable energy on-site. If any additional energy is needed for the building, it must be provided by renewable energy from electricity that directly serves the building through a power purchase agreement.
Net zero buildings use much less energy than traditional buildings, saving money for building owners and occupants. Net zero buildings use only renewable energy, with no combustion of fossil fuels on the premises, improving indoor air quality and avoiding health threats like asthma and respiratory ailments that are associated with burning fossil fuels.
The mayor’s proposal to weaken the net zero requirement replaces the definition of “net zero energy” with a new definition for “net zero energy ready,” which may sound good but is actually a measure to keep DC on fossil fuels and their enormous costs even longer. The mayor’s proposal delays the net zero requirement by six years, to December 2032. And it creates an enormous loophole by giving inspectors at the Department of Buildings full discretion to grant exemptions, quote, “Wherever there are practical difficulties.” This is in essence a full repeal of the law.
Mayor delays and weakens Greener Government Buildings Act
The mayor proposes to weaken and significantly delay the Greener Government Buildings Act (GGBA), along the same lines as the net zero building code. This law requires buildings owned by the District, or with significant DC government funding, to be net-zero energy, meaning they should be highly energy efficient, powered by electricity from renewable sources like wind and solar power, and not have any fossil fuel combustion in the building, such as from methane gas. The requirement applies to new and substantially renovated buildings.
We ask the Council to strike the changes to the GGBA from the mayor’s budget. We made this request to the Facilities Committee as well. In addition to the changes to the net zero code that we described, this provision would permanently exempt large residential projects that include significant DC government financing from the net zero requirements. While we recognize the challenges for affordable housing developers in retrofitting existing buildings to achieve net zero energy standards, we encourage DC authorities to work with housing developers to eliminate fossil fuels in affordable housing to the greatest extent possible.
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 told by a DC Council official 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.
Energy Efficient Construction at RFK Without Fossil Fuels
DC’s climate commitments call for eliminating the use of fossil fuels over the next 20 years, and our laws recognize that newly constructed buildings should be free of fossil fuels, highly energy efficient, and maximize on-site energy generation.
As a major development starting from scratch, the RFK site—with or without a stadium—is a perfect opportunity for DC to demonstrate its values and clean energy commitments by ensuring the site burns no fossil fuels. The Sierra Club asks that the FY 2026 budget require that all new or substantially renovated buildings on the RFK site burn no fossil fuels. The BSA should state that any contract transferring land and any contract for development of the land must contain provisions requiring all buildings at the RFK site be free of fossil fuels. The BSA should also state that if fossil fuels are planned for use at the RFK site, any contract transferring land and any contract for development of the land is null and void.
Unfortunately, DC has seen a lot of projects—like the new hospital at St. Elizabeths and the redevelopment of Walter Reed—that involved building new gas-fired power plants that pollute the air DC residents breathe while harming public health and increasing costs. Councilmember Allen, the Sierra Club asks you to ensure that this mistake is not repeated at RFK and that the site be free of fossil fuels.
Other provisions to strike from the Budget Support Act
We recommend several more changes in the mayor’s budget. The committee should keep the current prohibition on the purchase of Renewable Energy Credits that do not comply with DC’s Renewable Portfolio Standard. This is a waste of taxpayer money on greenwashing. The Council should also reverse the sweeps at the end of the fiscal year of the remaining funds in the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund, the Renewable Energy Development Fund, and other special purpose funds. These sweeps do not have a fiscal impact. We also ask that the Council restore the $8,000 that the mayor’s budget raids from the Renewable Energy Trust Fund, which is the local funding source for Solar for All. The Solar for All program provides solar energy to reduce the energy burden of low-income DC residents.
ZERO WASTE
Need for DOEE to educate and enforce current zero waste laws
We are pleased that the mayor’s proposed FY26 budget maintains current levels of funding for FTEs to enforce the District’s Utensils by Request requirement and the ban on plastic straws and stirrers. These policies are critical to achieving a Trash Free DC and the District’s broader zero waste and climate goals by phasing out single-use plastics.
Yet many residents find that they are still served drinks with plastic straws and that their takeout orders are full of single-use items they didn’t request, often even when they specifically indicated they did not want these wasteful items. A recent study by George Washington University graduate students on Foodware Pollution in the Anacostia Watershed found that 41% of DC restaurants did not follow the customer’s request to provide or not provide foodware. Lack of compliance among delivery apps is particularly high. Among orders placed through these apps, there’s only approximately a 50% chance of the customer’s request being followed.
Additionally, the utensils by request requirement of the Zero Waste Omnibus Amendment Act of 2020—which went into effect January 1, 2022—mandates that food delivery platforms and delivery apps update platforms so that customers must affirmatively request disposable items for their order. The default setting should be that no single-use accessories are offered unless the customer affirmatively opts in to receive them. However, the same GW study found that only 55% of a random sample of restaurant accounts in delivery apps had an option either to opt-in or out of foodware.
As the Sierra Club has testified previously—and as this data further illustrates—present funding and strategies for education and enforcement are not sufficient to achieve the zero waste goals of these laws. Currently, in addition to 300 restaurant inspections each year, DOEE employs a complaint-based compliance strategy utilizing the 311 tip line to identify enforcement violations. DOEE also needs to invest in concerted restaurant outreach, as we outlined in our Performance Oversight Hearing testimony. Additionally, as the GW data suggests, and given budget limitations, it may be particularly effective for DOEE to invest in enforcement by third party apps. Finally, additional investment in educating DC residents on foodware laws is also needed, as the GW study found that 68% of residents who participated in their survey were not aware of the District’s Utensils by Request law.
Anacostia River Protection and Cleanup Fund Sweep
It is our understanding that the Mayor’s proposed FY26 budget would sweep approximately $1.9 million from the Anacostia River Cleanup Fund, representing a 55% reduction in funding for non-personnel services. We learned that this sweep would result in cutting funds next fiscal year that will end environmental education programs and boat tours, and halve funding for trash traps on the Anacostia River. The sweep would also eliminate funds that were awarded to Ward 8 Woods for a Trash Free Communities Grant, even though Ward 8 Woods was only recently granted permission to start the program. Funds for all of these programs and grants must be protected.
Budgets are statements of values. Funding the meaningful enforcement of existing zero waste laws and protecting the sweep of the Anacostia River Protection and Cleanup Fund is a mere fraction of the mayor’s proposed subsidies for the RFK stadium deal. We ask that DC invest more in achieving our zero waste and climate goals than subsidizing the billionaire owner of the Commanders.
The District Bottle Bill Is Self-Funding
Councilmember Allen, please also allow us 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 this committee will hold a hearing on this groundbreaking legislation later this year. We want 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.
WATER & NATURAL PLACES
The Lead Pipe Replacement Assistance Program is Underfunded.
The mayor’s proposal to fund lead pipe replacement with only $356,000 in FY26 is grossly insufficient to meet DC’s commitment for removing all lead drinking water service lines from private property. With a commitment to remove all lead service lines by 2034, DC Water has projected the need for $5 million per year to address those on private property. DC Water currently relies on federal funds to help pay for these replacements, but the future of that funding is in doubt. Especially for low- and moderate-income residents, it is grossly unfair to charge them for removal of the lines that endanger their health through no fault of their own. The lead lines were installed by government institutions and should be removed and replaced at no cost to the residents.
It appears that the mayor’s proposed budget raids at least $150,000 from the Lead Poisoning Prevention Fund every year going forward. The Council created this special purpose fund to advance public health by reducing lead hazards. As has been echoed many times, a budget is a moral document. It is simply unconscionable to move funds away from remediation of lead service lines while diverting funds to subsidize a sports stadium. The Council needs to reject the mayor’s attempt to turn all environmental special purpose funds into lapsing funds. Her rewrite of District law allows her to continue to raid environmental programs funded by fees we residents have paid into for specific environmental and public health programs, such as lead pipe remediation.
Fund the clean-up of our rivers
There is uncertainty about $5.1 million to support the green infrastructure that is a key component of cleaning up our stormwater from sewer system overflows. We cannot find it in the budget but have been told that it’s somewhere. Budgets should not be so hard to understand, and this committee should ensure that the green infrastructure budget is adequate to maintain stormwater management service.
Another $22.6 million appears to have been raided from funding for stormwater management (collected through fees on our water bills), with $13 million earmarked for the Department of Public Works for street sweeping. Collectively, the shifting of these special purpose funds away from their legislated purpose to other District budget lines compromises the progress DC has made cleaning up our rivers and tributaries. The underfunding of our clean water commitments also has legal implications. If we do not have funds to comply with the District’s compliance agreement to implement the Clean Water Act, DC can be fined up to $35 thousand per day. It is not apparent that the mayor’s budget proposals ever considered the ongoing need to protect our surface waters–and the billion dollars of investment DC has already made to their health.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the mayor’s budget slashes funding for programs to promote sustainable energy, pursue our zero waste goals, prevent lead poisoning, protect the Anacostia River, and more. These funds are a mere fraction of the mayor’s proposed subsidies for the RFK stadium deal to benefit the billionaire owner of the Commanders.
Mayor Bowser’s trickle-down economics budget proposal shifts resources from working families to those at the top, hoping the benefits will somehow benefit everyday residents. The trickle-down budget would cut programs that support Black families, green jobs, lower utility bills, and cleaner air and water. Budgets are moral documents. This one tells low-income residents to wait their turn. But climate change and rising bills won’t wait, and neither should the Council. The Sierra Club urges you to reject this proposed budget and invest in DC’s people.