A smoke-free outdoors?
November 20th, 2009 | Agencies Congress Facilities | Posted by Rebecca Neal
Rep. Eliot Engel is trying again to ban smoking near federal buildings.
The New York Democrat unsuccessfully introduced a bill during the last Congress to ban smoking within 25 feet of any federal building’s entrances, exits, windows that can be opened and ventilation intakes. Engel reintroduced the bill Nov. 18 to correspond with the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smoke Out smoking-cessation campaign.
The Surgeon General reported in 2006 that there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. One step we can take in limiting such exposure is to free the entrances of buildings of the clouds of smoke often found when smokers gather outside of entrances and exits. The problem with this is simple – how else are people going to avoid secondhand smoke when the only ways in and out of a building is blocked by smoke?”
The bill would clarify various levels of guidance involving smoking near federal buildings. The General Services Agency banned smoking in courtyards and within 25 feet of doorways at GSA-controlled buildings, effective June 19, 2009.
A 1997 executive order banned smoking in all Executive Branch buildings, as well as all inside space owned, rented or leased by the Executive Branch.
What say you, feds? Is smoking an annoyance at your workplace? Or are you a smoker that would be annoyed by any new regulations?
Tags: Congress, Facilities, GSA, Smoking
The incredible shrinking government
September 21st, 2009 | Defense Facilities General Services Administration | Posted by Tim Kauffman
The federal government may be growing under President Barack Obama, but a just-released report shows the government is actually getting smaller.
Confused?
It turns out that while federal agencies are hiring more workers, they’re also getting rid of thousands of buildings they no longer need. The number of buildings in the federal inventory declined nearly 9 percent in 2008, or roughly 70 million square feet, according to a report posted today by the General Services Administration.
GSA attributes the decrease to a reduction of 36,000 military housing units and 4,000 warehouses by the Air Force and Navy.
Tags: buildings, real property
The more things change…
August 26th, 2009 | Facilities Interior Procurement | Posted by Elise Castelli
This weekend I took a trip to Ellis Island, which is operated by the National Park Service, in New York City.
While I expected to discover quite a bit about the conditions my ancestors endured when they passed through there in the early 1900s, I did not expect to discover a government contracting story that seems to prove the adage “the more things change, the more they stay the same.â€
According to an exhibit at the history of the immigration station, after the original complex of wooden buildings burned to the ground in 1897, the Treasury Department ran a competition for a “fireproof†(masonry) building. With the contract awarded to the firm Boring and Tilton, Ellis Island became the first federal facility to be designed under the competitive procedures prescribed by the Tarnsey Act. The act allowed private contractors to design federally owned structures.
The exhibit also highlighted a couple of contracting problems that persist in government contracting to this day. Specifically, Ellis Island came in behind schedule and didn’t meet the needs of the workers there.
Construction began in September 1898 and was supposed to take 12 months, but, according to the exhibit:
Strikes, contract disputes, and a lack of skilled workmen delayed the opening of Ellis Island’s new buildings until December 17, 1900.â€
In addition:
Officials working on Ellis Island complained about the building’s design and construction…Designed to meet the needs of 500,000 immigrants each year, Ellis Island actually had to accommodate hundreds of thousands more. Over the next quarter century, the island’s facilities, despite periodic additions, were sorely taxed by the growing surge of immigration.â€
Video tour of federal green roofs
April 29th, 2009 | Commerce Economic Stimulus Facilities | Posted by Tim Kauffman
Last week, I wrote about how federal agencies are using some of the billions of dollars in stimulus funds flowing to them for facility and energy projects to replace or retrofit their building rooftops with green alternatives.
Options being considered include thin solar films that are imbedded into roofs, additional insulation to repel heat, and vegetative roofs such as a 5,000-square-foot garden patch atop the seven-story Interior Department headquarters building in Washington.
Other agencies have outfitted their roofs with vegetation, recognizing both the environmental and economic benefits. Our videographer, Colin Kelly, recently toured two examples outside the nation’s capital in Suitland, Md. Follow the links for video of green roofs at the Census Bureau headquarters and at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration facility.
Tags: Census Bureau, green government, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
New green goals coming
April 22nd, 2009 | Agency Management Executive Office of the President Facilities Fleet Management State | Posted by Tim Kauffman
The White House is developing an executive order that will set new goals for greening federal agencies, the administration’s top environmental policy adviser said this afternoon.
The White House Council on Environmental Quality is working with several agencies to draft the new presidential directive, council chairwoman Nancy Sutley said during an Earth Day event at the State Department. Sutley did not say when the order will be issued.
Existing laws and executive orders already require agencies to cut their energy and water consumption, increase their use of renewable energy, purchase environmentally preferable products and buy alternative fuel vehicles. Sutley said the new order will go even further.
The order will closely integrate federal greening actions and set new goals for energy efficiency, the use of renewable energy, the purchase of fuel-efficient cars, water conservation and encourage overall sustainability.
For those of you who read your Federal Times closely each week, Sutley’s comments should come as no surprise. We reported this week that the administration was reviewing all existing goals to determine which ones should be updated, modified or otherwise revised to meet the Obama administration’s green government commitments.
Tags: conservation, Energy, environment, green
GSA's $5.5 billion stimulus plan
March 31st, 2009 | Economic Stimulus Facilities General Services Administration | Posted by Tim Kauffman
Update: The General Services Administration has posted the stimulus plan on its Recovery Act website. The 13-page plan can be accessed here.
Original post: The General Services Administration just announced that it’s decided how it will spend the $5.5 billion in stimulus funds it received.
Congress directed that $4.5 billion go toward converting federal buidlings to high-performance green facilities. Another $750 million is available for building and renovating federal buildings and courthouses, and $300 million must be directed to renovating and constructing land ports of entry.
GSA said it’s selected projects based on the speed at which jobs can be created and hwo much added energy efficiency can be gained. GSA intends to award $1 billion in projects within 120 days and the rest of the work in the next two years, according to a press release issued this afternoon.
Money will be spread out across the country, and every state should see at least one GSA-funded stimulus project, the agency said.
GSA said a detailed plan has been submitted to Congress, several days ahead of the April 2 deadline required by law. We’ll have more details in coming days.
Tags: Economic Stimulus
Green products guide
February 25th, 2009 | Facilities Fleet Management Procurement Uncategorized White House | Posted by Tim Kauffman
With pressure mounting to purchase environmentally friendly products, sorting through the various federal programs to determine whether there are specific products identified that meet environmental standards can be daunting.
After all, federal agencies are rating scores of products — everything from awards and bed linens to vending machines and water coolers — for recycled and biobased content, energy and water savings and absence of environmentally harmful chemicals or gases.
Agencies are required to buy environmentally preferable products, but finding out whether green alternatives exist for products being purchased is often a time- consuming and frustrating exercise.
Now there is a tool to make it a little easier. An intern at the White House Office of the Federal Environmental Executive has compiled environmental ratings from nine federal programs on products cutting across 18 broad categories into an Excel spreadsheet.
It’s the first time all of the designated products have been compiled into an easy to use tool for facility and fleet managers, information technology personnel, contracting officials and those who are certifying the products and services, said Dana Arnold, the acting federal environmental executive.
Arnold said the tool will be posted to both www.ofee.gov and www.fedcenter.gov and updated as new products are designated.
Tags: environment, green products
Obama gives unions edge in construction projects
February 6th, 2009 | Facilities Procurement White House | Posted by Tim Kauffman
President Barack Obama wants agencies to consider requiring contractors on large-scale federal construction projects to enter into collective bargaining agreements.
In an executive order issued this afternoon, Obama said the White House would encourage agencies to require so-called project labor agreements for facility, highway or other construction projects totaling at least $25 million. The union contracts would establish work rights and labor dispute procedures for all employees working for a contractor or subcontractor on a specific construction project.
Obama said such work rules would ensure big construction projects don’t get bogged down by disputes among various companies working on a single project.
Obama’s order re-establishes procedures that were in place under President Clinton that were overturned by President George W. Bush.
The full text of the order is after the jump.
Tags: collective bargaining, construction, contracts, Unions
One more word on the stimulus package
February 3rd, 2009 | Economic Stimulus Facilities Politics | Posted by Gregg Carlstrom
Steve calls out the wrongheaded argument that spending $75 million on FBI salaries is not economic stimulus.
We can go a step further: Everything on the Republican list of “wasteful projects” is stimulative. $88 million for a new Coast Guard icebreaker? Someone is getting paid to build the ship. $248 million for new furniture at DHS headquarters? Someone has to build the furniture.
Even the $400 million for the CDC’s STD prevention programs has an effect on the economy, because someone — whether feds or contractors — is getting paid to administer those programs.
You can argue that these aren’t the most stimulative types of spending, or the smartest way to spend limited funds. Personally, I’d love to see more infrastructure spending in the stimulus bill, particularly for mass transit.
But anyone who tells you that spending on government programs isn’t stimulative is being disingenuous.
Tags: stimulus
Video of the planned DHS headquarters site
February 2nd, 2009 | Facilities Homeland Security | Posted by Mariah Walters
The National Capital Planning Commission in January approved the master plan to transform the 176-acre abandoned St. Elizabeths psychiatric hospital compound into a headquarters complex for the Homeland Security Department.
Federal Times videographer Colin Kelly and Senior Staff Writer Tim Kauffman recently participated in a media tour of the southeast Washington site. Here’s Colin’s footage:
Tags: DHS, St. Elizabeths