On October 26-27, members of the AGC Environmental Network Steering Committee and AGC environmental staff met with the Department of Energy and senior staff from several U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program offices, including Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Policy, Economics and Innovation and Water. AGC members also held meetings with representatives from the Clean Air Task Force and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
Among the many topics of discussion were:
- The current focus related to energy efficient buildings (e.g., Building Energy Codes Program, funding and programs) and potential opportunities and challenges for construction contractors
- Setting a roadmap with achievable action plans for increased construction and demolition materials recovery
- AGC's concerns with possible regulation of coal combustion waste and implications for beneficial use of fly ash (EPA listened to AGC members' concerns, but could not share information on how it plans to address fly ash at this stage of the process.)
- The environmental priorities for the new administration and the status of EPA's Sector Strategies Program, including an update on the outstanding program initiatives
- The timeline for incorporating EPA's construction and development effluent limitation guideline (ELG) (final rule due to be released on Dec. 1, 2009)
- The process and timeline for revising EPA's federal construction general permit (CGP) for stormwater to incorporate final ELG (including the recently proposed one-year extension of 2008 CGP)
- A review of the Clean Construction Principles, signed by AGC and the Clean Air Task Force, and opportunities for future collaboration on education and outreach about voluntary diesel retrofit
- The inter-relatedness of the stormwater, effluent limitation guideline and total maximum daily load (TMDL) programs, an overview of the Chesapeake Bay Executive Order (May 2009) and upcoming Chesapeake Bay TMDL (Anticipated in mid-2010), and opportunities for possible collaboration on education and outreach on innovative approaches to stormwater management.