Two miles from the White House stands the Capitol Power Plant, the largest single source of carbon emissions in the nation’s capital and a concrete example of the government’s inability to curb it’s own pollution.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/09/us/politics/just-across-town-a-test-of-obamas-emissions-goals.html?ref=us
The plant, which provides heating and cooling to the sprawling Capitol campus — 23 buildings that include the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court and Congressional office buildings, in addition to the Capitol building itself — is operated by Congress, and its transition to cleaner energy sources has been mired for years.
The plant had reduced the amount of coal in its fuel mix to 5 percent, down from 56 percent in 2007. But it made up the difference primarily with diesel fuel oil because, as the architect of the Capitol, Stephen T. Ayers, told a Congressional panel in 2008, converting the plant to burn natural gas exclusively would have required a modernization costing $6 million to $7 million.
the plant was spending about $2.7 million a year on fuel oil, about twice as much as it might have cost to produce the same amount of energy using natural gas. The plant remained below its capacity to burn natural gas, according to a 2010 report from the Government Accountability Office, and it continues to burn diesel fuel oil, which, in addition to being much more expensive, is a significant source of emissions.
A review of public records and interviews with city and federal officials suggest that the root of the problem is a lack of enforcement by regulators and insufficient oversight from Congress.
Although the power plant is required to submit emissions reports to the District of Columbia’s Department of the Environment, which coordinates enforcement with the Environmental Protection Agency, and to apply for operation permits for new devices, records show that both agencies have failed to ensure that the power plant is in compliance.
District records show that the city has regularly failed to ensure that the plant is operating legally. In 2011, members of the city agency’s Air Quality Division discovered that one of the plant’s main boilers had exceeded the 10 ton-per-year limit for nitrogen oxides, which can cause severe breathing difficulties, by more than 20 tons per year since 2000.
“This is more evidence Congress doesn’t have concern for health impacts in the region,” Jim Dougherty, the director of the Sierra Club, said. “I think they have their own imaginary interests in mind and have no regard whatsoever for the people. They think they are above the law.”
“You can see the emissions coming out of the stacks,” said Susan Holmes, a mother of two young children who lives a few blocks from the power plant. “It makes you nervous and worry about what you are breathing in.”