The Gov. want to be efficient

The Governor want the capitol to be efficient. Well welcome to the club. Where to start? When you spend $129 million on heat, cooling and lights for one building (a rate almost double that of a building of equal size) it will not be hard.

How bout this little ditty from way back in 2005 (My first blog post) on the year round heated (75 Degrees in January?) parking garage where the doors seldom to never close.

You would think Al Gore lived at the capitol.

How bout we get away from incandescent light bulbs in the offices. Short term cost. long term solution. They could also look into replacing the single pane windows with double pane high efficiency glass in the offices. Although this may be cost prohibitive there are places where I bet you could easily pass a quarter through some of the gaps. Caulk would be a cheap start.

How bout we turn off or at least down the lights in the halls at night instead of leaving them on 24/7. They could also be put on a motion sensor. I see Wal Mart doing this in some of their freezers so their must be some savings in it if they are willing to take the steps.

The same could be said for the heat and air. Programmable thermostats seem to work in houses to save money. Why not the state house? I know their is a loss point but a few degrees up or down depending on the season could make a big difference in the long run especially when few to no people are in the building at night any way.

Another area of improvement could be if they shut off the heat and cooling in parts of the building that are seldom used at all like the concert hall.

Want to save more? Stop buying bottled water for the legislature. I see the empty jugs fill up the halls some days. That can't be free and tap water will make the plants grow just as well.

Want to save more in energy costs? Don't build a party bunker that will require lighting, heat and cooling and up keep when it will only be used a few times a year at most. (Sorry, I had to sneak that one in)

These are just some starters on how to save money at the state level. I bet this study will come back and say a lot of the same things.

But if you want Tennessee to be really efficient then why not make it for all Tennesseans. Rep. Matthew Hill had a great bill lat year that would have lowered the sales tax on energy/water efficient appliances or products that had the energy star designation. You could also expand the tax break to new windows or insulation for houses. Products that offer a savings and are close in price to regular products get a longer look from buyers.

I think many Republicans get a bad rap. People think we are anti saving energy. That is not the case. Especially in the state legislature. I think if you took a poll of the gas use of the cars legislators drive I bet Republicans would be the ones who drive the more efficient cars over all. Conservatives want to conserve our resources be it money, energy or what ever. We just don't want to go broke, put people out of work, destroy the economy or spend money that will not have a return on itself to do it.