Nixon announces state energy conservation plan

State energy use must decrease by 2 percent yearly for the next decade.

By Andrew Denney

Published April 23, 2009

In just a few years, the state government could noticeably reduce the size of its carbon footprint by scaling back on the amount of energy its buildings expend.

Gov. Jay Nixon was on hand at the Missouri Energy Summit, which was held this week at MU, to announce a new executive order that will require state buildings to reduce their energy use by two percent each year for the next decade.

At a news conference Thursday morning, Nixon said the additional motions to expand energy efficiency in the state might come later in the form of more executive orders.

"I wanted to guarantee that we could see tangible, provable gains -- year one," Nixon said.

The state departments that will be required to adhere to the executive order are those that fall under the direction of the Office of Administration for building management. This means that the state departments of conservation and transportation, as well as the Missouri's public colleges and universities, would be excluded from the order.

Jeff Schaeperkoetter, director of the OA Division of Facilities Management, Design and Construction, which will directly oversee the execution of the order, said the office is hopeful that the goal of the order can be met. He said two state facilities -- prisons in Licking and Charleston -- have already begun working to reduce their environmental impact by switching from natural gas energy to wood chips to power their boilers.

Schaeperkoetter said the department's multi-targeted approach to reducing buildings' energy expenditure could also include using more computerized thermostats, energy efficient lighting and using more energy efficient methods for construction of new buildings.

"This is really taking it to the next level," Schaeperkoetter said.

He said instituting these changes would not be without costs, and while Schaeperkoetter said it was too early to determine how much of the burden that state coffers will have to shoulder while the changes are made, he said the state would have to spend capital improvement dollars to execute the order.

"This is not going to be a painless effort," he said.

Some environmental groups in the state said they support Nixon's plan, but said Missouri is behind many other states in terms of making changes to improve energy efficiency.

Henry Robertson, a lawyer at the Great Rivers Environmental Law Center and the Missouri Sierra Club energy chairman, said the order was a good move on Nixon's part, but that efforts to make buildings more energy efficient are not moving fast enough.

Robertson was responsible for submitting Proposition C to the Missouri Secretary of State for inclusion on last year's ballot, which voters approved by 66 percent. As a result of voter approval, Missouri's investor-owned electric utilities will have to draw 4 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2011.

Robertson said Missouri is one of eight states that do not have building codes to mandate energy efficiency for structures in both the private and public sectors. He said the mandate would be politically impossible to do in the state.

"It's not high on the state agenda," Robertson said.

According to a report released in October 2008 by the American Council for Energy Efficient Economy, Missouri ranked 35th in U.S. states for total spending on energy efficient programs, and 45th in overall scoring for energy efficiency.

Kathleen Logan Smith, executive director of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, said the order was anything but a bold move on the part of Nixon, but one she agreed with nonetheless.

"Two percent in the right direction is better than 100 percent in the wrong direction," Smith said about the plan.