Biden Orders Federal Vehicles and Buildings to Use Renewable Energy by 2050

[BumRushDaShow]

2. I used to work for the federal government

and I know the fleet (at least at my worksite) had some cars that used E85 (flex-fuel) cars so if we used those GOVs, and needed to gas up, we would need to find a station that sold that mix, and stations with E85 were few and far between here in Philly (luckily there was one a few miles from my building).

So for just that portion (federal vehicles, which can include cars, vans, trucks, aircraft, boats/ships, etc), then yes it's going to take some time - not so much in purchasing the vehicles themselves, but to get the charging infrastructure in place to do this. I know that we had some of our cars/vans parked in the back of the building but the rest were kept in 2 nearby parking garages. So it would be a matter of getting contracts (and funding for them) to install charging stations at federal buildings and find some way to get similar available at private garages (and obviously implemented at gas stations nationwide).

The E.O. also talks about converting federal facilities and I know that with ARRA back in 2009, the building where I worked went through getting it more energy-efficient, which included replacement of all the old wooden sash windows with energy-efficient vinyl ones (and since the building was designated historic, the exterior had to be done a certain way so as not to alter the historic nature). Plus a green roof was installed. That whole process involved completely encasing the building with scaffolding (with guys outside my window singing on the scaffold platforms).

And in some cases, the federal government actually owns the facility but in other cases, they lease space in private buildings, so decisions need to be made of how to go about carrying this out for existing GSA-owned buildings (with various ages) or whether to actually "move" to a more sustainable building (which again has a cost) for agencies in private buildings.

So yes, it will take years to do.