Testimony of Lara Levison
Sierra Club District of Columbia Chapter
Budget Hearing on the Department of Energy and the Environment &
DC Sustainable Energy Utility
Committee on Transportation and the Environment
May 1, 2026
INTRODUCTION
Councilmember Allen, thank you for the opportunity to testify at this FY27 budget hearing on the Department of Energy and the Environment (DOEE), and thank you for your strong leadership on environment and sustainability issues. My name is Lara Levison, and I am testifying for 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, including 7,000 DC residents. We are proud members of the Fair Budget Coalition.
We are offering testimony today on several aspects of DOEE’s portfolio that are also areas of focused work for the Sierra Club, including clean and affordable energy, achieving zero waste, clean and efficient transportation, and protection of our water and natural places.
ENERGY
Energy Affordability
Rising electric and gas bills have made energy affordability a central issue. It is the “hottest” topic in the mayor’s race. Low-income households and people of color are disproportionately impacted. The percent of income they pay is steep, and the compromises they make to lower their costs are beyond uncomfortable. Fortuitously, in a world very short of win-wins, addressing energy affordability moves us toward greater sustainability. Well-insulated homes with efficient HVAC systems use less energy. Renewable energy is cheaper energy. Diversity in energy sources drives down costs. And distributed energy (energy that is generated and managed at the place of consumption, e.g., geothermal, solar, and batteries) also reduces costs and increases reliability.
DOEE budget cuts
The proposed budget for DOEE shows a 28 percent decrease in funds and over a 6 percent cut in staff. This will be devastating to clean energy programs. By far, the largest share of the decrease comes from loss of federal funding. If the federal share had remained the same, the budget cut would be 8%, still a steep cut. Instead of compensating for federal cuts, the Mayor is compounding the problem by cutting DC funding as well. The amount of DC funds going to DOEE is down almost 20 percent.
Sustainable Energy Trust Fund (SETF)
Last year, the Council acquiesced to the Mayor’s proposal to transfer more than $70 million from the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund (SETF) to pay the District government’s utility bills. In the proposed FY27 budget, the Mayor increases the raid on the SETF by another $10.5 million dollars. We urge this committee to reject this transfer and restore the $10.5 million–and more if possible–to the SETF.
As you know, the Council established the SETF, and funded it with small surcharges on our gas and electricity bills, to promote sustainable energy programs in the District. These include home electrification, rooftop solar, green jobs, and rebates for efficient appliances. It makes absolutely no sense to cut these programs when DC residents are struggling with high energy costs.
Last year, the Council renamed the portion of the SETF that was raided to pay the District’s utility bills as the “Mayor’s Energy Surcharge Fund”—to make it clear to utility customers that these funds are no longer being used for sustainable energy programs. In the FY27 Budget Support Act, the mayor proposes to change the name to the “District Energy Fund.” The Sierra Club opposes the name change for the same reason. Also, the gas and electric utilities should be required to print the full names of the two funds, the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund and Mayor’s Energy Surcharge Fund, rather than the acronyms or shortened versions or omission. DC residents and businesses deserve to know where exactly the fees they pay are going–to pay DC’s energy costs at the direction of the Mayor, or to sustainable energy programs and the needs of fellow DC residents.
DC Sustainable Energy Utility and Healthy Homes Act
The SETF’s clean and affordable energy programs are largely implemented by the DC Sustainable Energy Utility (DCSEU). For low- and moderate-income homeowners, the DCSEU provides free solar systems and home electrifications, and for anyone living in DC, rebates for purchasing more efficient appliances and equipment. For building owners and developers, the DCSEU provides a variety of services and programs to improve energy efficiency and increase access to solar energy.
The additional sweep of funds from the SETF will cause additional deep cuts to the DCSEU, likely causing staff layoffs. The DCSEU is vital to providing utility relief and home retrofits for DC families–slashing it at any time is backwards, but doing it now at this time of sky-high utility bills is unthinkable. Even if funding for the DCSEU goes up again in future years, it will take time to rebuild the knowledge and expertise lost with those staff.
Furthermore, currently DC has access to $60 million in federal matching grants for our energy programs. Those funds will expire in a few years, and DC has woefully underspent them because of our chronic lack of local funding. To date DC has only spent $3 million. Slashing the DCSEU and yet again defunding these programs imperils our access to all of these federal grants. While District budgets are tight, leaving free money on the table is negligence. Your committee has the opportunity to undo this move by the Mayor.
With your leadership, Councilmember Allen, in 2024 the DC Council passed the Healthy Homes Act, authorizing no-cost home energy efficiency and electrification upgrades for 30,000 low- and moderate income DC households. We urge you to include $10 million for Healthy Homes in the FY27 budget. This groundbreaking law has the capacity to bring substantial public health and financial benefits to residents who are currently struggling to pay their energy bills or replace old appliances in their homes as they wear out. The Sierra Club is concerned that the deep cuts in the SETF and consequently the DCSEU could result in few or no free efficiency and electrification upgrades for these families in the coming year.
Renewable Energy Development Fund (REDF)
To make matters worse, the mayor proposes to raid $3.7 million from the Renewable Energy Development Fund (REDF) in the current budget year (FY26). The funding in the REDF comes from compliance fees paid by energy companies to fulfill the requirements of DC’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) when they do not obtain enough electricity from renewable resources.
The REDF is the main source of funding for Solar for All, a program implemented by the DCSEU that is intended to bring the benefits of solar energy to 100,000 low- to moderate income families in DC, reducing their electricity bills by 50%. Solar for All has placed solar on single-family homes and enabled renters and residents in multi-family buildings to benefit from solar energy by becoming subscribers. According to a recent public briefing, this $3.7 million sweep of the REDF will greatly reduce the Solar for All program.
Net-zero Energy Building Code
The Sierra Club opposes the proposal in the Budget Support Act to delay the net-zero energy building code for one year, from the end of this year (2026) to the end of next year (2027). The Council passed the law requiring the net-zero energy code in 2022, five years before it would take effect. The mayor’s delay taking steps to implement the law should not be an excuse for extending the deadline. The net-zero energy code is essential to cutting utility bills, reducing local air pollution and climate pollution from fossil fuels, improving energy efficiency, and increasing the use of renewable energy.
Net-zero energy buildings have three main characteristics. First, they do not burn any fossil fuels on site; they are all-electric and do not contain any systems that burn fossil fuels like methane gas for space heating, water heating, or cooking. Second, they are highly energy efficient. Third, they maximize their use of electricity from renewable energy resources, including solar, ground-source geothermal, and wind power. Of these three characteristics, the all-electric requirement is the most crucial. A new building with methane gas equipment will continue to burn unhealthy and polluting fossil fuels for decades to come.
Rather than delaying the net-zero energy requirement, the Council can solve this problem this year by legislating net-zero energy requirements for new and substantially renovated commercial buildings. The existing net-zero requirements for new and substantially renovated DC government buildings should be maintained. While there may need to be exemptions, such as for emergency backup power for hospitals, these exemptions should be kept to a minimum.
Building Energy Performance Standards
The Sierra Club reluctantly supports the proposed one-year delay in the Building Energy Performance Standards–reluctantly because BEPS is so important to DC’s climate goals and has already been delayed from the original timeline. This program will increase energy efficiency in large existing buildings in DC, thereby reducing greenhouse gases and other polluting emissions, as well as improving comfort for building occupants. It is our understanding that completion of the first cycle of BEPS, for the largest buildings, is still on track, with the evaluation of buildings’ performance taking place this year (2026), and enforcement taking place next year (2027).
Funding for the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Study Amendment Act
Everything we are talking about today concerns precious tax dollars and the difficult priority setting the Council and the Mayor need to do to parse the needs of competing programs. This all will be a great deal easier if the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Study Amendment Act–also known as the Make Polluters Pay bill–is enacted and funded. There are a host of projects DC needs to undertake to mitigate the harms caused by fossil fuel pollution and climate change. To ensure that the study can be funded, please allocate $200,000 in the FY 2027 DOEE budget.
ZERO WASTE
Thank you, Councilmember Allen, and other members of this committee, for co-
introducing the bottle bill. We greatly appreciate your efforts in steering this landmark
legislation through this committee. Once in effect, the bottle bill will cut pollution by eliminating
waste from the 337 million plastic bottles sold in the District each year, in addition to
hundreds of millions of aluminum cans and glass bottles.
While the bottle bill represents an important new strategy for reducing beverage
container waste, the District must also ensure full implementation and enforcement of
the plastic pollution laws already on the books. Given growing concerns over
microplastics and harmful chemicals used in plastic production, it’s clear the District
needs to reduce its plastic pollution. One key step we can take is for the District to
increase compliance with existing plastic pollution laws.
We urge the DC Council to require DOEE to fund annual outreach to all restaurants and
food service entities to educate them about the District’s existing laws. This includes
District bans on expanded polystyrene, plastic straws and stirrers, and the requirement
to only provide single-use utensils, condiment packets, and other food-service
“accessories” if a customer requests them (shorthanded as “utensils on request”)
Due to staff turnover in restaurants and food service entities, systematic annual
outreach and education are essential to ensure the District’s plastic reduction
requirements are consistently implemented and plastic pollution is cut. At DOEE’s
recent budget briefing, the agency indicated it is exploring outreach mechanisms other
than an annual mailing that it believes may be more effective. Whether through an
annual mailer, social media, Business Improvement District (BID) information sharing, or
other effective mechanisms, education and outreach shouldn’t require a large budget
allocation. We also request that this committee hold DOEE accountable for annual outreach
to all restaurants and food service entities.
In addition to annual outreach and education, DOEE also needs sufficient funding for
meaningful enforcement. For years, despite our calls, DOEE has only been given
enough funding to conduct 300 restaurant inspections a year, relying on tips to 311 to
identify at least some of the restaurants it inspects. We call upon this committee to
ensure that DOEE receives at least 1.5 additional FTEs for the enforcement of our
existing plastic pollution laws, so that DOEE can double the number of food service
entities it inspects annually from 300 to 600. Only through a combination of education
and enforcement will more District food service entities begin to respect our sensible
measures to reduce harmful plastic pollution.
Likewise, we call on DOEE to publish enforcement regulations for our utensils on
request requirements under the Zero Waste Omnibus Amendment Act of 2020 for both
food service entities and third-party delivery apps. We request this committee to ask
DOEE why these enforcement regulations do not exist and are not published on the
DOEE website. The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) has announced that it seeks
to step up enforcement of environmental measures. But the OAG and DOEE can only
enforce the District’s utensils on request requirements if DOEE publishes enforcement
regulations.
The Fiscal Year 2026 Local Budget Act of 2025, introduced on April 20, 2026, if left untouched, will sweep some $535 million from the Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Fund, also known as the bag tax. Regrettably, we are therefore once again forced to request Council to prevent this sweep. The amount the Mayor is sweeping in her proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget is less than last year. Nonetheless, the need to protect these funds remains the same as last year’s green budget battle.
The Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Fund is mainly bankrolled through the five-
cent bag fee on single-use plastic and paper bags charged by retailers. We continue to
advocate for Council to adopt a ban on plastic bags and drive uptake of reusable bags,
as neighboring jurisdictions in Maryland have done. Until that time, these fees should be
reserved exclusively for Anacostia River cleanup and protection activities and not swept
into the District General Fund. This sweep represents the worst of both worlds. We are both generating unnecessary sales of harmful single-use plastic bags instead of encouraging
the use of reusable bags and eliminating funds earmarked for a safe, swimmable
Anacostia River. The environmental community is tired of fighting this battle year after
year. We’re sure the Council shares our fatigue. We nevertheless urge Council to once
again step up to prevent this harmful sweep.
TRANSPORTATION
Regarding the EV charging law: As we urged in our DDOT budget hearing testimony, the District’s electric vehicle transition needs to be fully funded with $4.8 million in FY27 for the Comprehensive Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Access, Readiness, and Sustainability Act. That includes $1.1 million for DOEE’s costs for the act’s EV plan, incentive program, and coordination with DDOT, to accelerate the installation of more EV charging stations across the District.
Our DDOT budget hearing testimony includes further recommendations for other sustainable transportation priorities to improve bike and pedestrian safety, traffic and traffic safety enforcement, transit service, and transportation electrification, including the following:
- Increase, don’t decrease, funding for Vision Zero
- Fully fund the STEER Act, PLAZA Act, EV charging law, and e-bike rebate program
- Reverse the Electric Vehicle Purchases Amendment Act and Fleet Electrification Amendment Act in the proposed Budget Support Act
- Ensure funding and accountability necessary for timely completion of the study for a second Metrorail station and improved Metrobus service to serve the RFK stadium site
- Update the District’s decongestion pricing report
- Fully fund implementation of the forthcoming Strategic Bikeways Plan and ensure that the plan will update and implement the bike priority network equitably with community priorities.
WATER AND NATURAL PLACES
Health of our rivers
The Mayor spent much of 2025 fighting to give the Washington Commanders over $1 billion of DC taxpayer money to help them build a stadium and neighborhood along the banks of the Anacostia River. Then, in early 2026, the Potomac River experienced the largest sewage disaster in U.S. history. If there was ever a time to invest in the cleanliness and health of DC’s rivers, it is now. We are making a bet, as a District, that the value of our riverfront property will help us grow out of our economic woes.
This is impossible to square with the divestment and redirection of river-related funds we see proposed in the Mayor’s FY27 budget. As mentioned elsewhere in Sierra Club’s testimony, DOEE is facing the second year in a row of budget cuts over 20%. When you look at the details regarding the health of our rivers and green spaces, the Natural Resources Administration (NRA) within DOEE is facing a dramatic set of cuts that ultimately harm our rivers, parks, and communities.
A key area to note is the District’s compliance with our Separate Storm Sewer System MS4 Permit. There are a variety of stormwater and river protection activities the District must do to be in compliance with this permit, and the Mayor's cuts both this year and last year imperil DC’s compliance. The Natural Resources Administration (NRA) within DOEE is making tough choices to spend even less resources, as the department's reserves from special purpose revenue funds are lower than any time in recent history. These choices include having to decide which creeks and runs to fund stormwater and trash clean up for, and which creeks and runs to, simply, leave unattended and let trash pile up or continue to flush unabated into our rivers. This kind of selective programming puts the District's MS4 compliance directly at risk.
DOEE is also making tough choices to cut entire stormwater and green space programs this year. An incomplete list includes the Green Infrastructure Maintenance Program, Community Stormwater Solutions funding, Park Maintenance Grants, and Water Monitoring Grants. These programs again help keep DC in MS4 compliance, while also engaging a network of community groups and partners that all help keep our District clean and beautiful. This year, none of those programs will happen, as they are being zeroed out.
One way DC can comply with its MS4 permit and protect our rivers and riverfronts is with strategic street sweeping. In the past, DOEE has used Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) to direct funds to the Department of Public Works (DPW) to ensure street sweeping was done in critical neighborhoods and areas that better the cause of clean rivers. However, the FY27 budget from Mayor Bowser yet again simply unilaterally takes money from DOEE to fund the District’s street sweeping, without offering details of how it will be used. Right now, much of DC’s street sweeping happens in the downtown core. While that service might make tourists and Donald Trump happy, it does little to protect our rivers; the sewage infrastructure downtown is already set up to protect our riverways. Where street sweeping needs to happen is in specific MS4 zones to best protect against stormwater runoff. This is the second year in a row where the Mayor has simply taken this money from DOEE and moved it over to pay for the District’s street sweeping–$4 million this year and tens of millions of dollars last year. There is a right way to use MS4 monies for street sweeping, and this is not it. In fact, operating this way yet again puts DC at compliance risk.
Compliance risk on our MS4 permit is a serious issue. Protecting against stormwater runoff is not only the right thing to do for our District, our neighborhoods, our waterways, and even for the benefit of the Commanders, it is also the thing we must do to avoid enormous fines. The EPA can file enforcement fines on districts that are out of compliance with their MS4 permits in amounts of over $50,000 a day. I’ll say that again, over $50,000 a day. What is more, being out of compliance opens the door to possible lawsuits against the District.
It is critical that the DC Council work to restore money to DOEE to get us back in compliance with our MS4 permit. We would even recommend asking the Commanders to pitch in, so they can enjoy the enormous benefit of a clean Anacostia River next to their new stadium home instead of dealing with literal streams of pollution, trash, and toxins that flow through our neighborhoods into our rivers. We hope the Commanders would agree that these stormwater investments are worth it.
Lead Pipes
As of this time, it is our understanding that DC Water has allocated $0 for the Lead Pipe Replacement Assistance Program for FY27. Zero. There is some hope among other agency leaders that this is in fact a mistake or that DC Water hasn’t gotten their documents in on time, but we have not received any clarification on the matter. As for DOEE’s funding for lead pipe replacement programs, it was cut by $43,000, leaving only $448,000 for both replacement costs and program administration. However, if that budget remains as it is, agency leaders have shared that at least 650 DC homes next year will not have their lead pipes replaced and will continue to be exposed to toxic lead.
To add insult to injury, the Mayor’s budget proposes a variety of cuts to programs related to lead pipe education and health, including the programs under Lead-Safe & Healthy Housing. This program area is cut by $727,000, meaning less funding lead testing at child daycare centers, less funding for mold inspectors and remediation, and many other critical health programs.
The lead pipes that remain in many, many DC homes were installed by government institutions. They should be removed and replaced, and the government should pay. The fact that DC continues to cut funding for these programs is unconscionable.
There is no safe amount of lead that a human can ingest. Lead exposure has profound impacts, especially on young children. In 2019, DC water announced its “Lead Free DC” initiative to help protect residents and get rid of lead pipes across the District. In 2021, the agency reported that there were 28,000 lead pipes still left in DC, and then after additional analysis a few years later in 2024 found the true number to be almost 42,000.
As of now, the Lead Service Line Replacement dashboard shows that there are still 29,103 pipes left to replace, and we are only 29% complete with our promise to DC residents. This is an area where the District needs to invest in consistent progress, in particular in neighborhoods most vulnerable to lead exposure. Pulling back from this funding is unacceptable.
This concludes our Chapter’s testimony. This budget season, the Mayor has again forced a series of brutal cuts to our District’s environmental and climate programs. This committee, under your leadership, Councilmember Allen, has the opportunity to problem solve and roll back many of these harmful changes, and the DC Sierra Club hopes to be a resource to you as you find solutions. We are happy to follow up with any questions you may have.