spacer.gif
spacer.gifSustainable Environmental Stewardship
Waste Prevention and Recycling Green Purchasing Electronics Stewardship
Environmental Management Systems Sustainable Buildings Industrial Ecology
  
Office of the Federal Environmental Executive        Go back to last page  Go Home

What's New
Contact OFEE
Executive Orders
CTC Winners
Publications
Related Links
Search
Sitemap

Your Government
Text Only
Privacy Policy
Accessibility


Contact OFEE

About OFEE

We value the comments of those we serve and appreciate any feedback you may have on our work. We will update this information regularly and, with your comments and lessons learned, we will review our vision statement.

Vision Statement
Our Priorities
Six Methods
The Federal Environmental Executive
The White House Task Force on Waste Prevention and Recycling
Who's Who
How to Contact Us
History of OFEE

Internship Opportunity



Vision Statement (February 2003)

Our Vision: A federal government that applies sustainable environmental practices.

Our Mission: To promote sustainable environmental stewardship throughout the federal government.

We define sustainable environmental stewardship to include those concepts, strategies, tools, practices, and approaches that lead to environmental improvement in a manner that is sustainable over time, considers the long term effects as well as the shorter term, more immediate effects, and that contributes positively, even if indirectly, to the social and economic condition.

Our Priorities

We believe that the use of Environmental Management systems (EMS) is the primary management approach to determining, prioritizing, implementing, and improving upon those environmental issues that will lead to sustainable environmental stewardship. Other tools include life cycle assessment and industrial ecology.

Sustainable practices are those practices, technological applications, and methodologies that improve the environment, but go beyond and do so in a way that is more long term in thinking and implications, and that apply the tools. Specifically, OFEE focuses on the practices of Sustainable Buildings, Waste Prevention and Recycling, Green Purchasing, and Electronics Stewardship.

Our Methods: To initiate momentum for adoption of sustainability practices and policies, we:
  • Encourage sustainable practices
  • Identify and share success stories, best practices, and other tools to make sustainable practices easier to adopt and maintain
  • Provide training, awareness, and outreach
  • Assist in coordinating and advancing sustainability policies across agencies
  • Publicly advocate and support sustainable practices and policies
  • Measure and report on agencies' progress

The Federal Environmental Executive

Edwin Piñero was appointed by President George W. Bush in September 2004 to serve as the Federal Environmental Executive in the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive. Mr. Piñero had served as Deputy FEE since January 2003 and had assumed the role of Acting Federal Environmental Executive in June 2004. Previous to this appointment, Mr. Piñero was owner of Piñero Consulting, an environmental management consulting firm in Pennsylvania. He also worked for then-Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge from 1998 to 2001 as Director of the Bureau of Environmental Sustainability in the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, as well as the State Energy Director. Over his 22-year career, Mr. Piñero has worked for various environmental consulting firms, taught graduate courses in environmental management for Duquesne University, and was a geologist with Mobil Oil Corporation. He has a Bachelors Degree in Geology from the State University of New York and a Masters Degree in Geology from Texas A&M; University.

The White House Task Force on Waste Prevention and Recycling

Under Executive Order 13101, the Federal Environmental Executive (FEE) chairs the White House Task Force on Waste Prevention and Recycling. The Task Force works to provide clear national direction for federal agencies and track government's progress for waste prevention, recycling, and the purchase of recycled-content and environmentally preferable services and products, including biobased products. The Task Force is directed by a Steering Committee composed of the FEE, the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and the Administrator of the Office of Management and Budget's Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

The Task Force advises and assists the Steering Committee and the Federal agencies, makes recommendations concerning policy, facilitates implementation, provides a centralized focal point for assistance and direction, and helps educate and train people in the requirements of the Executive Order. The Steering Committee members are among the President's chief advisors on environmental and acquisition issues, underscoring that successful integration of environmental and energy considerations into an agency's daily operations requires close coordination by environmental, acquisition, and facilities staff.

Who's Who

Edwin Piñero, FEE
      Environmental Management Systems
      Sustainability
      Chair, Federal Green Building Council
      Biennial Report to the President

Dana Arnold, Chief of Staff
      Green Purchasing
      Biennial Report to Congress
      Biennial Report to President
      Training and Outreach
      Chair, Executive Order 13101 Interagency Advisory Group
      International Trade
      Waste Prevention and Recycling

Juan Lopez, Senior Program Manager
      Sustainable Buildings
      Electronics Stewardship
      Bienniel Report to the President
      Closing the Circle News
      White House Closing the Circle Awards
      Earth Day and America Recycles Day events

Cathy Broad, General Services Administration (Agency Representative)
      Sustainable Buildings

We also have throughout the year a cadre of capable interns from a variety of universities that include the University of Texas, the University of California, Georgetown University, among others.

How to Contact Us

To contact the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive or the White House Task Force on Waste Prevention and Recycling, please call us at (202) 564-1297 or e-mail us at task_force@ofee.gov.

History of OFEE

The Office of the Federal Environmental Executive has its genesis in the issue of resource conservation. The Federal government has a long history of promoting conservation by recycling, extending at least as far back as World War II with the War Production Board's call to Americans to save scrap metal. The last three decades, however, have seen an increased attention to promoting energy conservation and recycling across America, as well as within the Federal government.

Key Events

In 1976, Congress passed and President Gerald Ford signed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Section 6002 requires agencies to develop affirmative procurement programs to purchase EPA-designated recycled content products. The Federal buy-recycled program is intended to create and sustain markets for materials recycled in our home and office recycling programs, as well as industrial by-products that otherwise would be landfilled.

In 1991, President George Bush issued Executive Order 12780, Federal Agency Recycling and the Council on Federal Recycling and Procurement Policy. This order created the Federal Recycling Coordinator (designated by the EPA Administrator), the Council on Federal Recycling and Procurement Policy, and agency recycling coordinators within each of the major agencies, all in order to increase the level of recycling and purchase of recycled-content products.

President Bill Clinton's 1993 Executive Order 12873, Federal Acquisition, Waste Prevention, and Recycling, created the position of the Federal Environmental Executive (designated by the President), as well as Agency Environmental Executives. These positions were specifically intended to bolster support for recycling and the procurement of recycled-content products. This order also set the standard that all federal office paper is to contain at least 30 percent post-consumer recycled content. President Clinton named Fran McPoland as the first Federal Environmental Executive.

In 1998, President Clinton issued Executive Order 13101, Greening the Government Through Waste Prevention, Recycling and Federal Acquisition, which built on the prior orders and also created the White House Task Force on Waste Prevention and Recycling.

On April 30, 2002, President George W. Bush appointed John L. Howard, Jr. as the Federal Environmental Executive. Previously, Mr. Howard was the Senior Associate Director for the White House Council on Environmental Quality; the Environment and Natural Resources Policy Director for then-Governor Bush; and an environmental attorney in Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas. Mr. Howard returned to private practice in Austin in mid-2004.

The Present

OFEE's new mission statement is "Promoting sustainable environmental stewardship throughout the federal government." OFEE is devote its time, talents, and resources to the tools and practices that expands its historical core waste prevention and recycling priorities into the broader area of sustainable environmental stewardship.