Going green at the White House
Posted: Thursday, November 08, 2007 11:40 AM by Daily Nightly Editor
By Jeannie Ohm, NBC News correspondent
It is not visible from the outside, but the most famous residence in the country has been changing colors. Yes, the White House boasts shades of green — a conscious decision to save energy and to reduce water consumption and waste.
While critics accuse the Bush administration of not doing enough to address climate change, the White House, in many respects, has become more environmentally friendly than many homes in the country. Previous administrations took action, but aides say President Bush and the first lady have implemented many more changes.
Walk down the hallways and you will find compact fluorescent lights instead of the energy-hogging incandescent bulbs. Gone are the old EXIT signs, replaced with LED (light emitting diodes) signs. Remember how your mother always yelled at you to turn out the lights? Well, that used to be tough at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. because large banks of lights were interconnected. Now a new system allows isolated control of the lights. Just don’t expect the White House to ever go completely dark given the security needs.
From the toilets to the manicured lawns and gardens, there is also a nod to saving water, a hard lesson playing out right now in the parched Southeast. Throughout the complex, low-flush toilets and low-water-consumption faucets have been installed. A new weather monitoring system prevents the lawn sprinkler systems from going off when it’s raining. That move alone is expected to cut down water use by 50 percent.
With winter around the corner, less heat will be lost thanks to new pipe and duct insulation. Solar heating systems fuel the grounds maintenance building. In the summertime, energy-efficient cooling units will work less to keep any president cool no matter the political heat.
What about those huge gas-guzzling motorcades used by the president and the vice president sometimes to travel just across the street? It’s not likely we will see a parade of Priuses any time soon. But, we are told, some of the Suburbans are alternative-fuel vehicles that can use ethanol. The mail vans at the White House also run on ethanol. Of course, most of the staff doesn’t travel in motorcades. In fact, they are encouraged to do their work via video teleconferencing to cut down on costs and fuel consumption.
Recycling bins have been placed throughout the complex to collect newspapers, magazines, cans and plastic bottles. A large table obscures the only two small bins set aside for the entire White House press corps in the recently renovated Brady press briefing room. All the desks here have their own trash cans.You can imagine what happens. Hopefully, the other bins are in more convenient, easy-to-access locations.
So how much are all these steps ultimately saving taxpayers? Apparently, the White House has not been tracking those figures. A spokesperson says, “We are confident that the measures we have taken are making the White House more energy-efficient.”
