Testimony of Mark Rodeffer
Sierra Club District of Columbia Chapter
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Campus Redevelopment
DC Council Committee of the Whole & Subcommittee on Local Business Development
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Thank you, Chairman Mendelson and Councilmember Felder, for holding this hearing today on the redevelopment of the RFK campus, where DC taxpayers are investing billions of dollars in a stadium and other buildings that are required by law to run on clean energy and have no on-site combustion of fossil fuels for building heat. My name is Mark Rodeffer, and I am testifying on behalf of the Sierra Club, America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with 3,000 members in the District of Columbia.
The Sierra Club and other witnesses today are raising the alarm that the Commanders and District are exploring a gas-fired power plant at the RFK site, polluting the air in our neighborhoods and spewing toxins like nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide, and particulate matter into our lungs. The result would be more asthma attacks, decreased lung function, and heart attacks among District residents. The long-term health care costs may rival the taxpayer subsidy given to the Commanders. DC law prohibits fossil fuel combustion in new buildings, but our understanding is that the team and DC are searching for loopholes to allow them to pollute our air.
Heating newly constructed DC buildings with fossil fuels is illegal
The RFK Campus Redevelopment Act of 2025 requires that the stadium be constructed and operated consistent with Version 5 LEED Platinum, which explicitly states, “No On-Site Combustion” and requires the District and the Commanders to “design and operate the project from start-up with no on-site combustion.” Building a stadium and other buildings at RFK without fossil fuels is feasible and easily achievable. Many stadiums and arenas are free of fossil fuels, including the one housing Seattle’s NHL and WNBA teams, a 1916 soccer stadium in the Netherlands, and a soccer stadium under construction in New York.
In addition to the all-electric requirements in the RFK legislation, existing DC law already requires all DC commercial buildings and all publicly subsidized buildings—at the RFK site or elsewhere—to be constructed to a net-zero energy standard prohibiting on-site combustion of fossil fuels for thermal energy.
The Clean Energy DC Building Code Act of 2022, codified at DC Code § 6-1453.01, states that under DC’s net-zero energy standard, “[o]n-site fuel combustion shall not be permitted for the provision of thermal energy to the building[.]” The Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Support Act of 2026, makes some changes to the buildings covered by the law but maintains the prohibition on on-site fossil fuel combustion for new commercial buildings.
The Greener Government Buildings Act of 2022, codified at DC Code § 6-1451.02, requires that District-owned and substantially District-financed newly constructed buildings maintain net-zero energy compliance, as defined under DC Code § 6-1453.01, which prohibits on-site fossil fuel combustion. Because the RFK redevelopment will involve substantial District ownership and financing, these statutory requirements must be incorporated into the project's design from the outset.
Energy Master Plan RFP suggests DC and Commanders may violate DC law
The District government’s RFK PMO Energy Master Plan Request for Proposals (RFP), issued on March 13, asked for, among other elements, proposals that “[e]valuate the integration of a combined heat and power natural gas facility and the potential for phasing in future technologies to increase efficiencies and decrease reliance on natural gas.” A combined heat and power facility, or any other facility on the RFK campus that relies on the combustion of natural gas or any other fossil fuel, would be wholly inconsistent with the provisions of DC law discussed above. A facility that mixes natural gas or any other fossil fuel with a “renewable gas” or any other fossil fuel alternative is still subject to DC law regarding fossil fuel combustion in new buildings. DC law contains no provision allowing the combustion of fossil fuels in buildings where they are otherwise prohibited, even when the fossil fuels are mixed with a non-fossil fuel.
Accordingly, if the stadium or any other building on the RFK campus is designed to rely on the on-site combustion of natural gas or any other fossil fuel, it will be inconsistent with binding DC law. Proceeding with a design that violates these statutory requirements could expose the District and the Washington Commanders to litigation that could delay permitting, construction, or occupancy of the stadium, increasing costs and creating unnecessary uncertainty for both the District and the Commanders. Attached to my testimony is a letter from a Sierra Club attorney outlining the legal risks if DC and the Commanders seek to violate the law. These risks can be avoided by ensuring from the outset that all buildings on the RFK campus comply with DC's statutory prohibition of on-site fossil fuel combustion.
Winning RFK Energy Master Plan proposal includes DC’s top climate polluter
Over the summer, the District government awarded the RFK Energy Master Plan contract to a team led by the Virginia company Setty and Associates. The team includes a businessman who has built fossil fuel power plants across the District. The team also includes the utility Washington Gas, which is responsible for about 20% of DC’s climate pollution, according to the Department of Energy and Environment’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory. No other single entity is responsible for a greater share of our climate pollution than Washington Gas.
Given that new buildings in DC are prohibited by law from burning fossil fuels for heating, why is a gas utility whose business model is selling dirty energy part of the RFK Energy Master Plan team? We don’t know, because the District government has not provided the relevant documents. I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in August seeking the documents. The Department of Buildings (DOB) granted itself an extension and then later denied my FOIA request, saying the Office of Contracting and Procurement (OCP) has “custody” of the documents. Notably, DOB did not deny it had the documents I sought. DC’s FOIA law does not exempt one agency from providing documents merely because another agency also has those documents. Given the executive’s intransigence, the Sierra Club asks the DC Council to demand the proposal, contract, and relevant documents from DOB and OCP and to publicly release them, with any confidential information redacted. My FOIA request, DOB’s denial letter, and my appeal are attached to this testimony.
We don’t know exactly what is in the secret documents, but we have been told that it includes plans for “locally sourced renewable natural gas.” The term “renewable natural gas” is as much of an oxymoron as the term “clean coal.” They are both dirty fuels that pollute the air and the climate. Our understanding is that the Setty team and Washington Gas claim they can get some biogas from decaying materials in a dump on Benning Road that was closed over a century ago. There’s no evidence that a large reservoir of landfill gas exists near Benning Road, but our belief is that that is exactly why Washington Gas is involved—to instead provide fracked methane gas to fill any gaps from the landfill gas the Setty team claims it can tap.
Regardless of the degree to which “renewable” landfill gas would be mixed with the fracked gas sold by Washington Gas, there is the question of why highly energy efficient buildings at RFK that maximize on-site renewables even need fuel combustion. We believe it may be because the plan is to build a gas-fired power plant at RFK to generate electricity. The Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) has recently pushed to make it easier to build fossil fuel power plants in DC as long as they are serving microgrids. We should make no mistake about it: labeling a dirty energy power plant a “microgrid” does not change its status as a polluting power source.
DC Council needs to ban fuel combustion at RFK
The Sierra Club asks the Council to amend the Capitol Hill Area Element of the Comprehensive Plan to prohibit combustion of fuel on the RFK campus. Current law already prohibits on-site fossil fuel combustion for the provision of thermal energy, but to ensure the mayor and the Setty team’s fossil fuel interests do not seek to get around that law with a gas-fired power plant, banning on-site fuel combustion for any reason is needed. If not, the Setty team, the District government, and the Commanders may seek to burn fossil fuels on site, opening the District up to costly and lengthy litigation that could delay the opening of the stadium.
DC residents should not have to breathe toxic air so a billionaire’s football stadium can have its own gas-fired power plant.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.