Lawmakers Want Capitol to Go Green

With the Capitol looming in the background, a coal-fired power plant is seen in Washington Thursday, May 31, 2007. Congress says it is going to join the war against global warming by cleaning up its own backyard, now cluttered with a coal-burning power plant, a fleet of fuel-inefficient vehicles and old-fashioned lights. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (Susan Walsh - AP)

On the Senate side, Rules and Administration Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has outlined a plan to audit energy use in all Senate buildings and reduce energy consumption by 30 percent by 2015 by installing high-efficiency lighting and buying renewable energy supplies.

All these efforts, said Anthony Kreindler, spokesman for Environmental Defense, are "meaningful not only for what they are doing for the Capitol, but it does set a good example for the rest of the country."

The biggest challenge remains the Capitol Power Plant, an eyesore located four blocks south of the Capitol. The plant hasn't generated power since 1952, but it does provide steam for heating and cooling.

The plant's boilers are fired using coal for 49 percent of their output and natural gas for 47 percent. While the plant is a fairly small source of air pollutants, it is still the District's third-biggest polluter, after two local power company plants.

"In the shadow of the nation's capital, we should expect more than a dirty power plant that pollutes the air and our community," Kerry said in a statement.

Lawmakers, dealing with the over-budget, still-unfinished $600 million Capitol Visitor Center, are in no mood to spend money on a new plant, and proposals to eliminate coal have been resisted by coal-state Sens. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

"With the emergence of new clean coal technologies, I believe coal should play a role in meeting the energy needs of the Capitol complex," Byrd said.

A proposed House spending bill for 2008 sets aside $3.9 million to begin replacing coal with greater use of natural gas. The Senate, in a nod to Byrd and McConnell, is backing a $3 million plan by Senate Environment Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., for a project that reduces carbon dioxide when coal is burned at the plant.