The Federal Government Goes Green
Last week, a Senate committee approved a bill to utilize "green" design for new federal government buildings in the Washington area. This legislation would create a new office to encourage the General Services Administration (the government's property-management arm) to "make environmentally friendly features, such as solar heat and recycled water, a high priority when the agency awards contracts to architects." According to the U.S. Green Building Council, there were about $792 million green buildings under construction in 2000. Today, roughly $7.73 billion of construction projects that are being built meet some degree of the council's LEED standards.
