Fx Co Joint Environmental Task Force (JET) Meeting
-- by Darren Braynard, 09/03/2019
My name is Darren Edwin Braynard. I am a concerned citizen of Fairfax County with a background in computer science, software engineering, data science, and an interest in climate science who attended the Fairfax County's Joint Environmental Task-force (JET) meeting described below. Also, I have included recommendations at the end of this report.
Meeting Overview
This meeting was held at the Mason Government Center in Annandale, VA and the attendees included members of the board of supervisors, members of the school board, members of various activist groups and other local government organizations, as well as some high school student representatives. This meeting had three main purposes:
- Provide an overview of the twenty-year history of Fairfax County's Office of Environmental and Energy Coordination, by that agency's director, Kambiz Agazi.
- Promote a working relationship between the Board of Supervisors and School Board.
- Develop a mission plan to combat "climate change" and prepare for its "effects" on the county within the confines of county governmental land use and facilities policy.
They plan to meet once a month. They had a person taking minutes and attendance (including the public), and asked that we all introduce ourselves.
Office of Environmental and Energy Coordination (OEEC)
Kambiz Agazi covered the history of the OEEC in the beginning of the meeting. He characterized the OEEC's focus prior to 2007 as being in support of water, soil, and air quality. However, in 2007, they took on a mission of fighting "climate change". This change was prompted by a suggestion from the Sierra Club.
The OEEC ha conducted seven initiatives since 2007, many of which have included spending on "green" technology and general energy efficiency improvements. They also included improvements to wildlife/landscaping. Besides these direct spending efforts, they have enacted loan programs for improving low-income housing. The most recent programs promote solar panels. A major achievement he mentioned was the county receiving the SolSmart Gold Award -- the only one in the state. There was also a brief discussion about Dominion Energy supplying electric school buses. This discussion was outside of the scope of the meeting and a few of the Supervisors in attendance described the plans as so-far under-developed.
The JET
The JET committee made it clear that they are directly influencing policy for just 3% of all the total properties/facilities in Fairfax -- only those owned by the local government. However, they see themselves as ultimately setting the example for everyone else to follow. The members of the JET committee plan to report new goals and policies back to their respective governing bodies.
One committee member spoke repeatedly about the inclusion of the term "equity" in the JET mission statement. This term was discussed within the context of JET and it was decided that it would mean to provide residents who cannot afford air conditioning a place to stay during hot weather. This discussion extended to also cover dealing with cold weather.
The committee then went on to brainstorm policy ideas and actions to further the fight against "climate-change". These ideas included:
- Solar on roof tops.
- Electric Buses.
- Analyze the dollars spent versus CO2 reduction.
- Safe-routes to school to reduce vehicle traffic. They also mentioned that it takes a lot of administrative work to fulfill this goal. In the past, eminent domain had actually secured side-walk zones from home-owners, but the sidewalks were never constructed.
- Carbon Goals.
- Recycling Improvements.
- Raise awareness and try to address Virginia's lacking a workforce for solar and green jobs. One committee member mentioned that none of the guys installing solar panels was from Virginia. The policies of Maryland were identified as to why solar installers come from Maryland instead.
- One attendee suggested that they begin benchmarking utility usage across all properties.
Recommendations
FTCA should request that the OECC state the climate change theory and reveal all scientific evidence and suggestions presented to them by the Sierra Club and how they determined the validity of that evidence. Further, FTCA should investigate any neglected backlog of issues related to water, soil, and air quality to identify any dereliction of duty due to the OEEC turning their focus towards fighting "climate change". Finally, the FTCA should request that JET committee also state the theory and provide scientific evidence for the need to combat "climate change". The scientific evidence should include at least these three types of information:
- The data used for temperature and CO2 observations, and their origins.
- Predictions of climate models against future measured data.
- Date, location, participants, and other relevant details of any experiments that support the theory.
RE: Fairfax County establishes Joint Environmental Task Force
-- by Angela Woolsey/Fairfax County Times, 04/05/2019
Fairfax County elected officials took the first steps toward creating a joint environmental task force on Apr. 2 during a joint policy meeting that brought Fairfax County supervisors, school board representatives, and staff together to discuss their collective efforts to make the county more environmentally friendly.
The joint environmental task force, known as the JET, will "identify areas to further Fairfax County's goals in energy efficiency and environmental sustainability," according to Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova.
Bulova named Mason District Supervisor Penny Gross, who chairs the board's environmental committee, and Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck as her appointees to the newly established task force.
Fairfax County School Board Chair and Mount Vernon District Representative Karen Corbett Sanders will represent the school board on the task force along with Hunter Mill District School Board Representative Pat Hynes.
Modeled after the Fairfax County Successful Children and Youth Policy Team, the JET is also expected to include county and Fairfax County Public Schools staff, environmental advocates, and representatives of other stakeholder and community groups.
"I suspect the JET will be permanent, so it will be something that will continue," Bulova said. "I think we'll start out talking about climate change, energy efficiency, but I suspect there will be other environmental issues that will wind up on the JET’s agenda over the years."
The creation of the JET is Fairfax County's latest push to develop a more proactive, focused approach to tackling environmental issues.
Fairfax County positioned itself as a leader in addressing greenhouse gas emissions last decade when it adopted a "Cool Counties" Climate Stabilization Initiative in July 2007, joining other local governments around the country in committing to reducing emissions to 80 percent below then-current levels by 2050.
However, some environmental groups argue that the county has since become slow to act, falling behind neighboring jurisdictions like Washington, D.C., Arlington County, and Montgomery County in Maryland.
"I think they are not doing enough and that they have historically been resting on their laurels as being, 'We are Fairfax County and we're leaders'," Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions founder and chair Eric Goplerud said. "...With the effort of the development of a comprehensive plan, putting money in the budget for 2019 and 2020, [and] this JET, we have a good chance of becoming leaders again."
With local elections approaching, Fairfax County leaders have taken several steps over the past year to make environmental issues a priority.
After revising the county's environmental vision in June 2017, the Board of Supervisors adopted an operational energy strategy on July 10, 2018 that set more concrete goals, targets, and actions for the county to follow to become more sustainable in areas like water and energy use, vehicles, building construction, and waste management.
The Fairfax County School Board passed a resolution on Oct. 11 calling on elected officials in the Virginia General Assembly and U.S. Congress to "act boldly on climate change and provide a regulatory framework that removes barriers to progress" on challenges such as the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources.
In response to the school board's resolution, Bulova directed county staff to gather information on the county's ongoing programs and commitments related to energy and the environment so that it could be presented in a joint meeting between the supervisors and school board, according to a Mar. 26 memorandum from Fairfax County Executive Bryan Hill.
The JET grew out of discussions that Bulova and Corbett Sanders had while planning for the Apr. 2 joint environmental policy meeting, Bulova says.
The Board of Supervisors also passed a "Fairfax Green Initiatives" joint board matter presented by Storck, Lee District Supervisor Jeff McKay, and Dranesville District Supervisor John Foust on Feb. 5, proposing the development of a communitywide energy and climate action plan and a county-specific climate resiliency and adaptation plan.
Prior to the joint meeting with the school board on Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors looked at a staff proposal on the logistics of creating a communitywide energy and climate action plan, or CECAP, during an environmental committee meeting that morning.
Under the staff proposal, a newly created Office of Environmental and Energy Coordination would assist the Board of Supervisors in creating an action plan while also forming a community advisory team with stakeholders from businesses and community interest groups to involve the public in the office's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions outside of county government.
The advertised Fiscal Year 2020 budget includes a funding increase of $537,799 and five full-time positions for the Office of the County Executive to establish an Office of Environmental and Energy Coordination, a proposal that the board discussed in an environmental committee meeting on Feb. 12.
Fairfax County Environmental and Energy Coordinator Kambiz Agazi suggested during the Apr. 2 environmental committee meeting that a final CECAP could be approved around March 2021 after two years for planning and development, including a community engagement process, but supervisors urged staff to accelerate that timeline.
"It seems that more than a year from now is much too long for us to be in that initiation phase. I think there is probably an easy way of streamlining that," Gross said. "...The more we read and hear about climate change, if we've only got 12 years to do something, we don't want to spend the first two years trying to figure out our plan."
According to a United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released last October, worldwide carbon dioxide emissions need to fall 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach net zero around 2050 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, which could curb rising sea levels, decaying coral reefs, and other damage caused by climate change.
Goplerud expressed relief at the Board of Supervisors’ request that staff speed up the timeline for creating an energy and climate action plan.
"We can't wait two years just to plan. We have to act now,” Goplerud said. "I'm reassured by the unanimous articulation by the Board of Supervisors about the importance of the issue, about the urgency of the issue, and their active engagement in making sure that it happens.”