42 U.S.C. § 17092 — High-performance green Federal buildings

(a) Establishment of Office: Within 60 days of December 19, 2007, the Administrator of General Services had to create an Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings inside the General Services Administration, and appoint a Federal Director to run it. The Federal Director's job is to establish and manage the Office and to carry out the other duties this part of the law assigns. (b) Compensation: The Federal Director's pay cannot exceed the maximum base pay allowed for the Senior Executive Service, though it can include any locality-based pay adjustment the law allows. (c) Duties: The Federal Director must coordinate the Office's work with the separate Office of Commercial High-Performance Green Buildings and with the Secretary of Energy. The Director must make sure information and activities are fully coordinated within GSA and with other relevant agencies — at minimum the EPA, the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, the Department of Energy, Health and Human Services, Defense, Transportation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The Director must set up a senior-level Federal Green Building Advisory Committee to give advice. Every five years, the Director must re-examine and identify improved or higher rating standards recommended by that Advisory Committee. The Director must fully coordinate, share, and promote research and development on federal high-performance green building work; identify and develop green building standards for every kind of Federal facility; establish green practices usable throughout a Federal facility's whole life; review current Federal budget and life-cycle costing practices and make recommendations to Congress; and identify chances to demonstrate new and emerging green building technology. (d) Additional duties: Working with the Commercial Director and the Advisory Committee, the Federal Director must identify and analyze current budget and contracting practices that get in the way of high-performance green buildings, including barriers to life-cycle costing. The Director must develop guidance and run training for budget and contracting staff so they can apply life-cycle cost criteria to real projects, identify tools to help with life-cycle cost decisions, and study whether benefits of green buildings — like added security — can be folded into cost-budget analysis for decisionmaking. (e) Incentives: Within 90 days of December 19, 2007, the Federal Director had to identify incentives to speed up the Federal Government's use of high-performance green buildings and related technology, including recognition awards and letting agencies keep as much of their financial savings as possible to reinvest in future green-building work. (f) Report: Within two years of December 19, 2007, and every two years after that, the Federal Director, working with the Secretary, must send Congress a report. The report must describe compliance with this part's requirements, including how well programs are being carried out and the status of their funding; identify facility procedures that could affect how new and existing Federal facilities get certified as high-performance green buildings; flag inconsistencies in Federal law about product acquisition and high-performance product guidelines; recommend uniform standards for environmentally responsible purchasing; and, working with the Office of Management and Budget, review the capital-program budget process for ways to require full energy and environmental cost accounting, factor in productivity and health measures alongside operating costs, let agencies keep savings from life-cycle costing, and identify short- and long-term cost savings — including health and productivity gains — from green buildings. The report must also identify self-sustaining green technologies useful during national security emergencies, natural disasters, or other emergencies; summarize state and local green-building initiatives; and, for the two years the report covers, include recommendations and an implementation plan for each of these items. (g) Implementation: The Office must actually carry out each implementation plan from the report described in subsection (f). (h) Identification of certification system: Within 60 days of December 19, 2007, the Federal Director had to pick, and give to the Secretary, a green-building certification system likely to encourage a comprehensive, environmentally sound approach. That choice must rest on: a study, redone every five years, comparing and evaluating the available standards; whether enough qualified assessors and auditors exist to independently verify the system at the scale needed; whether the standard-setting organization can gather and reflect public comment; whether the standard is developed and revised through a consensus process; how robust the standard's criteria are, giving credit for efficient and sustainable use of water, energy, and other natural resources, use of renewable energy, better indoor air quality, thermal comfort, acoustics, day lighting, pollutant control, and low-emission materials, reduced transportation impacts through site location and design, and any other criteria the Federal Director finds appropriate; and whether the standard is nationally recognized within the building industry.