By Debra DeHaney-Howard
June 28, 2010

Conference of Mayors President Burnsville Mayor Elizabeth B. Kautz moderated the June 12 special forum on the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program, noting that the energy block grant program "is now helping us invest in new technologies, like new generation lighting, and other projects to move us toward our energy and climate goals."

"We are finally seeing the block grant funds moving into projects and programs in our cities — creating jobs, reducing energy use and lowering our carbon emissions. Cities are excited about the energy block grant program and its vast potential. These funds help us make our city and this nation more energy independent, while reducing our carbon emissions," she added.

Kautz's message on securing continued funding for the energy block grant program, which is a key priority for the Conference, was echoed by other speakers throughout the session, which included Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, Indianapolis Mayor Gregory Ballard, Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle, and Philips CEO for Professional Luminaires Zia Eftekhar. This special forum was sponsored by Philips.

Discussing Burnsville's EECBG projects, Kautz told meeting participants that the city is undertaking energy improvements to the Burnsville Ice Center, a major community facility. She stated the project is $5.5 million and EECBG funds will pay 80 percent of the new dehumidification system. Kautz said, "Through this energy retrofit, we will reduce carbon emissions and our Center's energy costs by 43 percent." In addition to the Center, Kautz said the city plans to use its energy block grant funds to retrofit city hall and its police building, conduct audits on city buildings, offer financial incentives, and install LED holiday lighting in their 54-acre Heart of the City located downtown.

"The mayors of this country are running the cities as all of you have said ‘cities are the core of this country- and you are the chief executives as I am for our company you are for those communities.

Speaking on the role lighting plays in energy efficiency, Eftekhar said, "We [Philips] believe that lighting is an important component of the total energy efficiency and it's the most visible part and the part that is easiest to tackle and it's the quickest part that you can deal with. He added, "lighting by itself presents some 20 percent of energy consumed so lighting in itself, by itself, can present a huge savings potential for our country and for what we do. Most of that lighting is consumed in commercial and in city-type applications, not in residential. So as you go through and sort of peel this onion it is really the cities that you have to focus on."

Eftekhar emphasized the need for stronger public/private partnerships. He said, "We obviously believe that federal government can and should have a much more visible, stronger, real and effective way of supporting the transformation that our country needs in terms of its energy efficiency and therefore energy independence and there's no better place to do that than cities. To a large extent we are here and available to help you with either projects that you have already identified or projects that need to be developed — but that's only half of the equation, you still need to deal with the whole issue that these grants are not going to be available, at least as it appears today. We also want to make sure that our voice is heard and we want to be your partner in any way and shape that we can in going after legislative activities and after federal agencies that can promote getting that tool and obviously our voice can be a part of that partnership."

Nutter told attendees that, when he became mayor of Philadelphia, one of his goals was to make Philadelphia "the greenest city in America." As a part of its green initiatives, the city adopted an eleven-part plan that makes a number of investments in energy efficiency and conservation. "One year ago, I unveiled Greenworks Philadelphia, an ambitious sustainability plan to transform Philadelphia into the greenest city in the United States" said Nutter.

Nutter explained that Greenworks Philadelphia released a number of targets and projections for the city, including reducing Philadelphia's greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2015. "The Greenworks program is a great example of how city government is leading by example and not asking others to do anything that we are not prepared to do ourselves," said Nutter. "If we can improve our energy efficiency then dollars not spent on energy bills can go to making new investments in our city and providing other services," he added.

Nutter also provided a number of examples of how Philadelphia is using its energy block grant money to reduce its carbon emissions. Nutter said, "We are going to use $3 million in energy block grant funds to replace 85,000 traffic signals with LED bulbs. Additionally, we plan to retrofit our city/county buildings, expand our recycling programs, construct a number of bicycling parking areas, create a Greenworks Loan Fund and Rebate Program for commercial and residential energy retrofits, and establish an energy grant program for small businesses."

Ballard told meeting participants that one of the most important policy initiatives of his Administration has been the creation of a Sustainability Office. "I established a Sustainability Office to find new ways for the city to conserve energy and to educate both residents and business owners about the importance of being a truly sustainable city," said Ballard. He added, "Greening Indianapolis is an investment in our city's future, and making Indianapolis a sustainable green city is a priority that will put our city on better footing financially and socially,"

 Ballard highlighted a number of energy block grant initiatives under way, including creating more than 30 miles of bike lanes with another 22 miles in design. Ballard said, "For the very first time in the history of Indianapolis, the city has been designated a Bicycle Friendly city." Other projects under way include installing a geothermal system in the 48-year old city/county building, installing storm water filtering equipment, and retrofitting more than 500 intersections signals and street lights with LED bulbs.

Ballard echoed Kautz and Nutter's comments regarding how important the energy block grant funding is to cities. "The block grant funds have been instrumental in downtown Indianapolis. We-ve made progress but still there's more to be done. We-ve used our block grant money creatively and on a variety of projects, including lighting and retrofits that will save us a lot of money in the long run. I hope Congress sees how important this money is to cities and I like to get more of it because Indianapolis has put it to good use," said Ballard.

Stating that energy efficiency and conservation was of high interest to the citizens in Omaha during his campaign for mayor, Suttle stated that he "factored that into our delivery and promises as we stood in front of the voters to develop programs that were going to let us be a green city and let us become an energy efficiency city." He added, "I retained all of the grant staff from the previous mayor and they put together what turned out to be a $4.3 million dollar grant to the City of Omaha from the stimulus monies as part of this Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant."

In outlining the implementation process energy block grant programs, Suttle said, "We will be focusing in the early elements on shovel ready just as you heard from the previous mayors. We will be focusing on our city building retrofits, we will look at the traffic signals as well and we-re going to target some of our key older parking garages as we begin to look at the change outs in the lighting concepts there. From that we will transition into neighborhoods, we will transition into business sectors as we continue not only our city retrofits across the metro area but also begin to tie in everyone else." He added, "We will then model this into the entire community and encourage our corporations, our architects, our businesses, our engineers, constructors, retrofits developers so forth and so on to begin to follow this plan and what they are doing in their day to day practices as they carry on with their particular areas of interest."

To watch the full 90-minute forum go to www.usmayors.org/78thAnnualMeeting/specialforums.asp.