U.S. President Barack Obama today ordered the federal government to conserve energy and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 28 percent by 2020, a "lead by example" move that could save $8 billion to $11 billion over the next 10 years and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 88 million metric tons--equivalent to taking 17 million cars off the road for one year.
The executive order, which covers 35 government agencies, came just two days after Obama urged Congress to pass clean energy and climate legislation during his first State of the Union address, and less than two months after he brokered an agreement in Copenhagen that could lay the groundwork for an international treaty to address climate change.
The affected federal agencies have until June to submit their plans to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), showing how they will meet Obama's new emissions target. OMB will score each agency on its annual performance and progress toward meeting the goal, and will release that information to the public so we can all play along.
The federal government is the nation's largest single energy consumer--the government operates about 500,000 buildings and 600,000 vehicles nationwide and spent more than $24.5 billion on electricity and fuel in 2008. That may seem like a big dollar figure, and it is, but it represents only 1.5 percent of total annual energy spending in the United States.
Obama stopped short of requiring federal contractors and suppliers to trim their emissions as a condition of doing business with the government, and he didn't apply any emissions reduction goals or energy conservation conditions on how federal employees commute.
A few oil industry representatives and conservative pundits took potshots at Obama for promoting clean energy and cutting greenhouse gas emissions while continuing to ride in cars and planes that run on fossil fuels, but suggesting that doing nothing is somehow preferable to honest efforts that fall short of perfection is tiresome as well as ridiculous.
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