by Shane Henson — November 14, 2011—The building performance of America’s federal buildings could soon be improved through the High-Performance Federal Buildings Act, introduced earlier this month by Representative Russ Carnahan (D-MO) and numerous co-sponsors seeking to help federal agencies save energy and money.
The legislation addresses a number of ways to achieve high-performance buildings. According to the National Institute of Building Sciences, the legislation provisions would:
- Use lifecycle cost analysis to assure that overall spending on design, construction and operations and maintenance reflects the best use of agency funds.
- Provide federal agencies with access to the tools and techniques that facilitate the development of high-performance buildings, including building information modeling (BIM), commissioning, and integrated design processes, to assure that buildings are designed and operate with the greatest levels of efficiency.
- Share results, lessons learned and case studies from federal buildings to improve both public and private sector buildings, thus saving money while improving performance.
- Update regulations for the use of energy and water in federal buildings to reflect the most current codes and standards being used in the private sector.
- Provide federal agencies with access to the tools and techniques that facilitate the development of high-performance buildings, including building information modeling (BIM), commissioning, and integrated design processes, to assure that buildings are designed and operate with the greatest levels of efficiency.
A related piece of legislation passed during the last session of Congress, the Federal Building Personnel Training Act, introduced by Representative Carnahan and Representative Judy Biggert (R-IL), provided recommendations on education and training for federal building operations and maintenance personnel.
