Benning Road and Chalk Point are two power plants that provide large sections of the District with power. Predictably, they are some of the most polluting structures in the city. The Capitol Power plant, however, which joins those two plants as one of D.C.’s top pollution producers, doesn’t produce any electricity at all—it’s just your congressperson’s air conditioner.
Capitol Power’s entire output is steam and cooled water that heats and cools the buildings in the Capitol Complex, which includes the likes of the Capitol and the Library of Congress. The plant’s century-old structure contributes to its high pollution rate, but the heart of the problem is that coal, the junk food of the energy world, is responsible for nearly half of its output.
Thankfully, on Saturday Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) made a long-overdue demand of the Architect of the Capitol: to re-engineer the plant so that it uses exclusively natural gas by the end of 2009.
The House’s 2007 “Green the Capitol” program, which retooled the Capitol Power Plant to generate the House’s share of energy (about 33 percent of the plant’s total output) entirely from natural gas, showed that the Architect of the Capitol, the agency that oversees operation and maintenance of the buildings on the Capitol Complex, can quickly re-engineer the plant when legislators put pressure on them to do so.
The makeover, which AOC Spokesperson Eva Maleski estimated will cost $8 to $10 million, would vastly decrease plant’s pollution output, but powerful coal interests will likely attempt to stand in the way of the change. Although Senator Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.), a strong proponent of coal, does not have the same financial control over the AOC as he did when he blocked a similar measure in 2000, $4.6 million in coal has already been purchased for use in the plant in 2009, according to documents found by CNN.
Frank O’Donnell, President of Clean Air Watch, an environmental protection group, noted that these coal companies have made large contributions to several Senators’ campaigns. He fears that Pelosi and Reid have left the AOC a lot of room to drag their feet. He suspects that they may suggest delayed target dates for replacing plant equipment.
“While it’s a sign of progress, it’s still somewhat short of definitive,” O’Donnell said. “So while I think that the biggest defender of the status quo, [Byrd], has been sidelined, they left the AOC some wiggle room.”
Eva Maleski, a spokesperson for the AOC, claimed the opposite.
“We appreciate the Congress’s leadership in their efforts,” she wrote in an e-mail. “We are excited about the opportunities burning 100 percent natural gas at the Capitol Power Plant will present.”
While the AOC converted the House’s stake in the plant to natural gas admirably quickly in 2007, it has to be diligent to repeat its success by resisting sticker shock and standing firm against pressure from the coal industry. The House of Representatives must apply constant pressure to ensure that the AOC follows through on this extremely necessary matter, because Congress’s pollution shouldn’t continue to compromise the health of D.C. citizens.
Get all fired up with Molly at mredden@staff.georgetownvoice.com
