Government personnel merged with private and public sector representatives at the annual Southern Colorado Sustainable Communities Conference for nine concurrent discussion panels at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colo. Nov. 20-21.“We need a new grid system – that is a national goal. That is tantamount to going to the moon. The new administration and other commentators are saying we need to regrid the country to allow the redistribution of renewable energy,” said White House Office of the Federal Environmental Executive, Joe Cascio during the first military sustainability session.
Cascio addressed the 2007 Executive Order 13423. The EO calls for three percent energy conservation and two percent water conservation per year over seven years. The numbers equate to 30 percent energy reduction and 20 percent reduction in water by 2015, Casio said.
“Where is the baseline?” he said. “Most of you do not have meters. You don’t know how much you are consuming. You don’t know where to start. On the OMB (Office of Management and Budget) scorecards we are asking every agency to report on how they are reducing three percent a year. The people in headquarters are reporting to OMB that they are actually reducing, every year, three percent. Where are they getting the numbers?”
Cascio and Mike Cain, director of the Army Environmental Policy Institute participated in a working group the day prior. Casio and Cain will present an endorsement memo based on the 2004 Army Strategy for the Environment: Sustain the Mission, Secure the Future document for the incoming Barack Obama presidential administration chief of staff and secretary of the Army to sign.
“It all starts locally- environment, politics, and all other good movements, Cain said.
On another local front, the conference came on the heels of the Financing Renewable Energy Conference held in Washington, D.C. Nov. 13-14. For information about energy solutions for Colorado visit http://www.copirg.org/
