Pentagon Lights Dimmed This Month
lighting levels in common areas throughout the mammoth building are dimmed to the level used on weekends, in order to reduce the building's monthly utility bill of about $1.5 million and to motivate the 25,000 people working there to think about their energy use and ways to be more efficient.
The Pentagon's lights have been dimmed during the month of October "as part of federal efforts to conserve resources for Energy Action Month," DoD News' Lisa Ferdinando reported Oct. 7. Her article quoted John Conger, acting assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations and environment, as saying lighting levels in common areas throughout the mammoth building are dimmed to the level used on weekends, in order to reduce the building's monthly utility bill of about $1.5 million and to motivate the 25,000 people working there to think about their energy use and ways to be more efficient.
The dimming has been done in conjunction with President Obama's Executive Order 13693: Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade, in which federal agencies are adopting more sustainable operations to reduce taxpayer energy costs. "We care about energy at our installations and in the field, because we need energy in order to do our jobs in order to protect the country," Conger said. "However, one of the dynamics that feeds into that is we also need money to do all those things.
"We're past cutting fat and now we're cutting muscle, and we see that throughout the department as the budget cuts come down. If we can save some money without having an impact on mission, we should do it," he added, according to her article.