The Capitol Power Plant is a power plant which provides steam

Steam

Steam is the technical term for water vapor, the gaseous phase of water, which is formed when water boils. In common language it is often used to refer to the visible mist of water droplets formed as this water vapor condenses in the presence of cooler air...

 and cooled water for the United States Capitol

United States Capitol

The United States Capitol is the meeting place of the United States Congress, the legislature of the federal government of the United States. Located in Washington, D.C., it sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall...

 and other buildings in the Capitol Complex

United States Capitol Complex

The United States Capitol Complex is a group of about a dozen buildings and facilities in Washington, D.C., that are used by the United States government...

. Though it was originally built to supply the Capitol complex with electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

, the plant has not produced electricity for the Capitol since 1952. Electricity generation is now handled by the same power grid that serves the rest of metropolitan Washington

Washington Metropolitan Area

The Washington Metropolitan Area is the metropolitan area centered on Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. The area includes all of the federal district and parts of the U.S...

. The plant has been serving the Capitol since 1910 and is under the administration of the Architect of the Capitol

Architect of the Capitol

The Architect of the Capitol is the federal agency responsible for the maintenance, operation, development, and preservation of the United States Capitol Complex, and also the head of that agency. The Architect of the Capitol is in the legislative branch and is responsible to the United States...

 (see ) The power plant was constructed under the terms of an act of Congress

Act of Congress

An Act of Congress is a statute enacted by government with a legislature named "Congress," such as the United States Congress or the Congress of the Philippines....

 passed on 28 April, 1904. The Capitol Power Plant burned 17,108 tons of coal in 2006, producing about 60,000 tons of carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...

 emissions.

Controversy

Senators from coal mining states blocked a proposal in 2000 to use cleaner fuel for the plant. Senators

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 Mitch McConnell

Mitch McConnell

Addison Mitchell "Mitch" McConnell, Jr. is the senior United States Senator from Kentucky and the Republican Minority Leader.- Early life, education, and military service :...

 (Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 of Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

) and Robert Byrd

Robert Byrd

Robert Carlyle Byrd was a United States Senator from West Virginia. A member of the Democratic Party, Byrd served as a U.S. Representative from 1953 until 1959 and as a U.S. Senator from 1959 to 2010...

 (Democrat

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 of West Virginia

West Virginia

West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...

), both from coal mining

Coal mining

The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...

 states, used their influence as two of the Senate's most senior members to block this proposal. In May 2007, CNN reported that two companies, International Resources Inc. and the Kanawha Eagle mine, have a contract to supply a combined 40,000 tons of coal to the plant over the next two years. The companies have given a combined $26,300 to the McConnell and Byrd campaigns for the 2006 election.

In June 2007, Speaker of the House

Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, or Speaker of the House, is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives...

 Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi is the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and served as the 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011...

 announced the "Greening the Capitol" initiative. The initiative's goal is to make the Capitol carbon neutral, and the power plant is a major obstacle to achieving this objective. In November 2007, Daniel Beard, the House's Chief Administrative Officer

Chief Administrative Officer of the United States House of Representatives

The Chief Administrative Officer of the United States House of Representatives is the chief administrative officer of the United States House of Representatives, charged with carrying out administrative functions for the House, including human resources, information resources, payroll, finance,...

, announced that he would purchase $89,000 worth of carbon offset

Carbon offset

A carbon offset is a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases made in order to compensate for or to offset an emission made elsewhere....

s for 30,000 tons of carbon emissions. Beard made the purchase from the Chicago Climate Exchange

Chicago Climate Exchange

The now defunct Chicago Climate Exchange was North America’s only voluntary, legally binding greenhouse gas reduction and trading system for emission sources and offset projects in North America and Brazil....

. On February 28, 2009, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

Harry Reid

Harry Mason Reid is the senior United States Senator from Nevada, serving since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Majority Leader since January 2007, having previously served as Minority Leader and Minority and Majority Whip.Previously, Reid was a member of the U.S...

 sent a letter to the Architect of the Capitol asking him to create a plan to switch the power plant entirely to natural gas by the end of 2009. This letter came just three days before the scheduled protest, which organizers said would happen anyway.

Emissions

Table 1: Summary of Point Source Emissions: District of Columbia in 2002 (Tons)

Facility	PM2.5	NOx	SO2	PM10
Capitol Power Plant	83	129	483	84
Pepco Benning Road Generating Station 15/16	15	253	1467	67
Pepco Buzzard Point Generating Station	5	340	390	5
GSA Central Heating Plant	12	66	8	12
10 Miscellaneous Sources	12	529	320	14
TOTAL	127	1,317	2,468	182
Share produced by Capitol Power Plant	65%	10%	20%	46%

Particulates

For a plant its size (roughly 1/100th the size of the typical 500 MW power plant), the Capitol Power Plant produces a remarkably high quantity of the type of particulate matter (PM2.5) most closely associated with human health effects. As shown in Table 1, in 2002, the plant emitted a full 65 percent of the PM2.5 emitted in the District of Columbia.

Particle pollution, also called particulate matter or PM, is one of six "criteria pollutants" (PM, lead, mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and ozone) regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency. PM is a complex mixture of extremely small particles and liquid droplets in the air. When breathed in, these particles can reach the deepest regions of the lungs. Exposure to particle pollution is linked to a variety of significant health problems, ranging from aggravated asthma to premature death in people with heart and lung disease. Particle pollution also is the main cause of visibility impairment in the nation’s cities and national parks. Fine particles (PM2.5) are 2.5 micrometers in diameter and smaller; and inhaleable coarse particles (PM10) are smaller than 10 micrometers and larger than 2.5 micrometers.

In 2006, EPA tightened the 24-hour fine particle standard from 65 micrograms per cubic meter to 35 micrograms per cubic meter, while leaving the annual fine particle unchanged. EPA retained the annual fine particle standard at 15 micrograms per cubic meter. EPA retained the pre-existing 24-hour PM10 standard of 150 micrograms per cubic meter. Due to a lack of evidence linking health problems to long-term exposure to coarse particle pollution, the Agency revoke the annual PM10 standard.

Even before the EPA tightened the fine particular standard, Washington, D.C., was a "non-attainment" area.

External links

• Capitol Complex Overview, Architect of the Capitol
  Architect of the Capitol
  The Architect of the Capitol is the federal agency responsible for the maintenance, operation, development, and preservation of the United States Capitol Complex, and also the head of that agency. The Architect of the Capitol is in the legislative branch and is responsible to the United States...
  
  , Statute for the Capitol Power Plant via the Cornell Law School
  Cornell Law School
  Cornell Law School, located in Ithaca, New York, is a graduate school of Cornell University and one of the five Ivy League law schools. The school confers three law degrees...