42 U.S.C. § 17121 — Demonstration project

(a) In general: The Federal Director and the Commercial Director must write guidelines for a demonstration project program. The purpose is to advance the research goals of both the Office of Commercial High-Performance Green Buildings and the Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings. (b) Projects: Following those guidelines, the Directors must carry out four kinds of projects. First, for each fiscal year from 2009 through 2014, one demonstration project per year showcasing green features in a Federal building chosen by the Federal Director. Each of these projects must include instrumentation, monitoring, and data collection so the impact of the green features on energy use and operating costs can be studied and evaluated, and the building must achieve the highest rating offered by the green building certification system chosen under section 17092(h). Second, at least four demonstration projects at four universities, chosen competitively by the Commercial Director. Each university must have the right research resources and relevant projects to meet the demonstration goals, and must be able to serve as a model for green-building research and education by achieving the top rating under section 17092(h); find the best ways to use green building and landscape technology to engage and teach undergraduate and graduate students; run an effective green-building education program for students and building occupants; show how well various high-performance technologies work, including their effect on energy use and costs, in each of four different U.S. climate regions; and explore both measurable and immeasurable benefits to public health and to employee and student performance. Third, demonstration projects that test replicable ways to achieve high performance in the actual, everyday operation of different kinds of commercial buildings in different climates. Fourth, outreach activities that spread information about, and encourage wide adoption of, technologies, practices, and policies that lead to zero-net-energy commercial buildings, or to low energy use with effective energy monitoring. (c) Criteria: A Federal facility chosen for a demonstration project must be a good model for testing high-performance technologies; analyzing materials, components, systems, and emergency operations, including their effect on occupant health; applying life-cycle costing and life-cycle assessment to building materials and systems; and choosing a location and design that make it easy to get to by walking, biking, or mass transit. The facility must also be flexible enough, technologically and organizationally, to support this kind of project. The four participating universities must be chosen by the Commercial Director, after carefully reviewing all applications, based on their track record of public-private research partnerships, their demonstrated ability to build or renovate buildings that meet high indoor environmental quality standards, their organizational and technological flexibility, and — for at least one of the four — their capacity to share lessons with nearby or sister universities, to have institution-wide green building guidelines for every campus project, and to be recognized nationally as a leader in sustainability education. The four universities must also be spread across four different U.S. climate regions: hot and dry, hot and humid, cold, and temperate (including places with cold winters and humid summers). (d) Applications: To receive a grant, an applicant must submit an application the way the relevant Director requires. The application must include a written promise that every laborer and mechanic working for a contractor or subcontractor on any construction, alteration, or repair paid for even partly by the grant will be paid no less than the prevailing local wage for similar work, as determined by the Secretary of Labor under specific wage-standard laws. The Secretary of Labor keeps the same authority over these labor standards that a 1950 government reorganization plan and a related wage law give. (e) Report: Within one year of December 19, 2007, and every year after that through September 30, 2014, the Federal Director and Commercial Director must report to the Secretary on the status of the demonstration projects, and each participating university must separately report on the status of its own project. (f) Authorization of appropriations: Congress authorized $10,000,000 for fiscal years 2008 through 2012 to carry out the Federal building demonstration projects in subsection (b)(1), and a separate $10,000,000 for the same years to carry out the university demonstration projects in subsection (b)(2). Both amounts remain available until spent.