Federal Government Energy Use

Federal Government Energy Use and Executive Branch Actions

We speak often of legislation and regulations, but the executive branch of government- the White House and federal agencies, also play a significant role in energy. For the purpose of this discussion, we consider the government not as the developer of legislation or implementer of law and regulation, but as an organization with energy-related impacts and demands. The U.S. government is one of the largest procurers of the energy in the world, and the single largest user and purchaser of energy in the U.S. The purchasing power of government to simply maintain its operations is large enough to affect and, to an extent, actually shape markets and pricing. Also, goals for improvement in energy performance can have a big impact on the overall energy use in the country.

One type of approach commonly used by the Federal government is the Executive Order (EO). An EO is a directive from the President to the Federal agencies and those entities under Executive Branch jurisdiction. An EO is not binding on the general public. However, EOs do impact the general population by the actions, or lack of actions, of Federal agencies in response to an EO. EOs do not have the force of law and remain in effect once issued until it is revised or revoked by the issuing President or a subsequent President. Congress can memorialize all or part of an EO into legislation, as happened with the energy efficient Federal buildings part of EO 13423 into the energy act of 2007 (see below). Once this happens, the EO or the portion memorialized now has the force of law and can only be changed or undone by Congress.

In the realm of energy, EOs are important in that they drive Federal use and procurement of energy which in turn affects the energy markets, in part because of the great use of energy by government operations.

Before we delve into what goals and commitments the Federal government has made over the years, let us explore how the U.S. government figures into national energy use.

Now that we have a better use of how and how much energy is used by the government, let us explore how the government has addressed their energy usage over time. The best way to explore this is to review the various EOs in the past 20 years. EO 13423 issued in 2007 was the first one that consolidated the various environmental and energy goals of the government into a single, coordinated, and integrated sustainability strategy.