In 1906, Vilfredo Pareto observed that 80% of Italy’s land was owned by 20% of its population. Eventually this observation was memorialized as the Pareto Principle or, more commonly, and applied to describe many phenomena, such as where 80% of a…
Author: Kurt Stout
The Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act—Redux
In the 113th Congress last year, Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Senator Rob Portman (R-OR) introduced the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act, S. 2262, a 136-page bill intended to update previous legislation on energy efficiency…
Notes From GSA’s Annual “Lease Turnover Analysis”
At the end of each fiscal year GSA produces an analysis of its leasing activity that provides an interesting glimpse into the federal real estate sector. This spreadsheet report, the Lease Turnover Analysis, seeks to address many…
CPI Has Declined, and So Has Your Rent
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently posted the January 2015 Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures and the results show that the measure declined 0.1% from a year ago*. This would be of little consequence to most non-economists but federal landlords…
Tenant Star: A New Program for Energy Efficiency—in Limbo
On January 20, 2015, by a vote of 94 to 5, the U.S. Senate authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to create a voluntary “Tenant Star” program whose mission is, with the use of market incentives and…
Saving Energy and Tax Dollars: A New Report from the CBO Wrestles with Accounting for Both
In 2012, Reps. Peter Welch (D-VT) and Cory Gardner (R-CO), bridging the partisan divide in Congress, created the House Energy Savings Performance Caucus, a group within the House that advocates for federal service contracts that emphasize…
Cutting the Federal Workforce
The federal government is big. That is something about which few people of whatever political stripe would disagree. Excluding members of the armed services (but including Postal Service workers), there are about 2.7 million federal employees—as…
Obama’s FY 2016 Budget: Higher Wages, More Spending, Less Real Estate
There’s good news if you’re a federal employee, assuming that President Obama’s proposed 2016 budget is enacted intact: It will come with a 1.3 percent pay increase. Now, 1.3 percent isn’t a big hike, but it’s…
The Executive Order of January 30, 2015: A Flood of Costly Regulations?
The figures are still being calculated for the costs of Hurricane Sandy, which swept up the East Coast of the United States in the fall of 2012, but at the moment they stand at $68 billion.…
Building Cybersecurity, Homeland Security, and the GAO
Think of the many ways in which computers control buildings, from HVAC systems to electronic door locks and the flow of gas, water, and electricity. Now think of the many ways in which those computers can…