 Our position in the world has been attained by the extent and thoroughness of the control we have achieved over nature, but we are more, not less dependent upon what she furnishes than at any previous time of all of this. Those words were spoken by President Theodore Roosevelt to a national conference on conservation at the White House in 1908. 100 years later, the public printer of the United States, Robert C. Tepella, looks to President Roosevelt's observation as a call to sustainable environmental stewardship at the U.S. Government Printing Office. Sustainable environmental stewardship is not a partisan issue. It's good business and it's good government. It's also not a new idea. President Teddy Roosevelt was talking about it 100 years ago. What we're seeing at GPO is a need from our customers for sustainable products and services. The employees at the Government Printing Office have been keeping America informed on the documents of its democracy since the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. They have been doing this from GPO headquarters on North Capitol Street in Washington, D.C. The facility is comprised of four buildings totaling 1.5 million square feet. GPO's plant is located on multiple floors requiring numerous elevators for the transportation of the product. The buildings are too large and antiquated to meet the printing and digital needs of the 21st century. The public printer would like to move GPO into the first lead platinum printing plant in America. Lead is a voluntary green building rating system that provides measurable benchmarks for developing high performance and sustainable buildings. Our buildings are from a bygone era. Our newest building is over 60 years old. Since we need a new factory, we need significantly less space, I believe that it is prudent to have the most environmentally sensitive building we could have. GPO is working with Congress on a plan to relocate the facility, but in the meantime the agency is taking steps to increase efficiencies. An immediate example is improving GPO's roof. This past year GPO put on a new biobase green roofing system on a small portion of the facility and it's expected to double the life expectancy of the roof. The biobase application that we're applying to the top of our roof is a membrane of sorts and it will reflect any light that comes down on it since it's white. Then inside our building we're not absorbing the heat as we have in the past, so our heating and cooling demands throughout the year will be decreased. Paper is another area where GPO is taking steps in helping the environment. Throughout the agency's history recycling paper has been a top priority. GPO's plant prints the equivalent of nearly 3 billion standard letter size pages per year. In 2008 GPO recycled more than 5.6 million pounds of waste paper. That's equivalent to about 34,000 trees saved. GPO's bailing room is the place where all waste paper throughout the facility comes. The waste paper is compacted and bail, bails weigh anywhere from 300 to 1400 pounds. Those bails are weighed automatically, sent down the conveyor belt, loaded into a truck, and sent to a vendor for recycling. GPO prints two daily newspapers, the congressional record and the federal register. These are produced on 40% post-consumer waste recycled newsprint. The GPO is moving toward using more environmentally responsible paper in our plant and for our agency customers. The message that we're sending to our federal customers are that GPO is the leader and we want to be front runners and protecting the environment. GPO has opened a dialogue with the paper industry. The public printer held a paper industry day in 2008 to listen and learn about paper sustainability from paper industry leaders. Also in 2008 GPO began testing 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper. The agency has seen positive results from these tests. Manufacturers have gotten better now. They have the brightness, the colors white, so you're really seeing a good product. GPO has taken a look at its equipment and has made great improvements towards sustainable environmental stewardship. Reducing hazardous materials and waste generation is a top priority for GPO. As part of this ongoing effort, the agency installed a solvent recovery system to improve operations and save the taxpayer money. GPO has reduced its hazardous waste by 90% in this area. We no longer have to haul out that waste but we're distilling it inside. GPO employees have been working around the clock to produce the nation's passports for the state department since the 1920s. In 2008, employees produced a record-breaking 24 million e-passports. 2008 marked another milestone in passport production. GPO opened a secure production facility on the grounds of Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. This operation ensures GPO continues to meet the demand by the American people and the state department's request of a secure facility outside of Washington DC. During the construction of Stennis, GPO selected energy-efficient lights, glass, cooling and heating systems and a solvent recovery system with a water evaporator. Gutted a building and we were literally able to start from scratch and so we made certain that the processes we designed down there were as sustainable as possible given the product we're producing. In addition to what we did in building the factory, we also have put in place systems so that we can achieve higher efficiency with the resources we're using. GPO works with the library community to provide free, open and permanent public access to the documents of our democracy through the federal depository library program. GPO is working with the FDLP on ways to practice sustainable environmental stewardship. GPO is making resources and printed products available in electronic form only which will save on paper in reduced waste. Digital itself is a key to sustainable environmental stewardship. GPO's federal digital system or FDCIS is an advanced system that will enable GPO to manage information from all three branches of the federal government. FDCIS gives the American people a one-stop site to authentic, published government information. While developing FDCIS, GPO purchased the most energy-efficient servers available which resulted in energy savings. GPO has also made energy upgrades to servers that service the entire agency. We're reducing energy by at least 40% on our servers in order to still achieve the performance levels that we need. And particularly with FDCIS, we have higher expectations of search performance to get accessibility to federal publications. GPO tries to be green in every step of the printing process. GPO employees have been recycling scrap metal, aluminum, silver, copper, brass, 55-gallon metal drums, and corrugated boxes for much of the agency's 150-year history. The agency has conducted multiple energy audits to help identify areas GPO can increase efficiencies. GPO asks its employees to help be sustainable by instituting an incentive program called Bullsharing. This year-round program gives all employees a monetary award for making a positive difference that helps GPO reduce costs and exceed revenue targets. This program gives all employees a chance to practice sustainable environmental stewardship. GPO's employees are our greatest asset. For nearly 150 years, these dedicated men and women have been producing the documents of our democracy and making them available to the public. It is through their actions that we will attain sustainable environmental stewardship. The men and women of GPO have made great strides in helping the environment, but are looking for more ways to be proactive. GPO is a model for showing how sustainable environmental stewardship is good business and good government.