Robin Bravender, E&E Daily reporter

A House committee will meet Wednesday to look at how building green can reduce the nation's impact on global warming.

As Congress moves forward with cap-and-trade and energy legislation, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will examine how green building practices can help homeowners and businesses reduce their carbon footprint and save on skyrocketing energy costs.

Buildings produce 39 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions and consume 70 percent of the nation's electricity, according to the U.S. Green Building Council. But building green can help curb emissions and save money on energy costs.

The average Leadership in Energy-Efficient Design (LEED)-certified building uses 32 percent less electricity than a noncertified building and saves 350 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year, the council says.

Congress will hear testimony from policymakers and industry professionals who have been building green for years before the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill was ever conceived.

Michelle Moore, senior vice president of policy and public affairs for the USGBC, said the green building model has been tremendously successful and is an interesting industry to learn from because it provides a measurable tool for "allowing individuals to see that you can do something that's good. It's a sustainable progressive movement."

More than half of U.S. states and 77 cities have green building policies, according to USGBC, ranging from incentives that encourage environmentally friendly construction to mandates that all state facilities receive green certification.

Congress may be able to learn a thing or two from localities nationwide that have successfully greened their buildings. "Cities and states are at this point the laboratories for a lot of the things we have to do here in Washington," said committee spokesman Eben Burnham-Snyder.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (D), is one of the witnesses scheduled to appear at Wednesday's hearing. His city has been one of the most progressive in the nation in enforcing green building requirements -- and Newsom is trying to impose the toughest regulations in the country.

The Select Committee, chaired by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), will also hear from engineering expert Kent Peterson and a representative of Enterprise, a low-income housing organization that has taken on green building products.

Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, May 14, at 2 p.m. Location TBA.

Witnesses: Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco; Kent Peterson, president of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers; Michelle Moore, senior vice president of policy and public affairs for the U.S. Green Building Council; and a representative from Enterprise Community Partners.

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