The Commanders’ energy plans for RFK stadium are already raising alarms

As the Commanders worked to secure support for a new stadium at RFK, the team’s leadership made a host of environmental promises, while the city official overseeing the project has pledged that it will be "the most sustainable" football facility in the country. But an early test already has environmentalists and lawmakers worried about their commitment to the cause. 

The team’s preliminary design plans suggest that a natural gas-burning power plant could be necessary to fuel the $3.7 billion project. That not only would run afoul of the sustainability goals, but a 2022 law banning the inclusion of such infrastructure in city-backed projects.

“There is going to be a gap [in the site’s power needs], and there is going to be a conversation about how to fill that gap,” Brian Hanlon, the head of the D.C. Department of Buildings and Mayor Muriel Bowser’s pick to manage the RFK project, told the D.C. Council at a recent hearing. 

The plans have raised alarms that the team is backing away from its climate goals to get the stadium open in time for the 2030 season, and fueled speculation that the Commanders are trying to rush the process while a friendly mayor is still in power.

“This administration is doing everything they can to make people anxious and nervous and suspicious about this, maybe unnecessarily,” Council Chair Phil Mendelson told The 51st. 

That anxiety stems in no small part from answers delivered by Hanlon during a Sept. 30 oversight hearing on the stadium. 

At one point in his testimony, Hanlon said a natural gas plant is “not under consideration” for the project. But he also said the city has included natural gas as a potential power option as it solicited proposals from energy developers. And he revealed that the team is preparing a request for an exemption from D.C.’s 2022 climate law banning natural gas in public buildings. (Lawmakers were openly frustrated during the hearing; Mendelson called Hanlon “very unprepared” for these questions.)

The city just went through a similar process with the $515 million project upgrading Capital One Arena, granting the owner of the Wizards and Capitals some exemptions from the same climate law (and refusing to deliver others), and environmentalists are concerned that history could soon repeat itself over at RFK.

“We’re telling the Council: You need to hold the Commanders and the mayor accountable to the laws that you passed,” says Mark Rodeffer, the political committee chair for the D.C. Sierra Club. “Allegedly this is supposed to be a great thing for Kingman Park and the surrounding community, but it’s going to do nothing but pollute their air if they go through with this plan.”

Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, the chair of the Council’s transportation and environment committee, has written a letter to the Commanders pressing for answers, but he has yet to receive a response. (Similarly, they did not respond to The 51st’s requests for comment.) 

But Allen suspects any responses he may receive will mirror rhetoric during early design conversations about the stadium: Why let a few green building rules slow down the biggest project in the District’s history?

“Every time there’s a tough decision that has to be made, they are going to put that in our face,” Allen says. “At some point we have to decide: Is that real? Is that a bluff? The stadium is going to be here for the next 50 to 75 years. If there is some massive tradeoff that needs to be made, is it more important to value the long term or the short term?”

Hanlon, who declined to comment for this story, said at the hearing that much of this alarm about the project’s energy plans is premature. The city only recently awarded a contract to a group of firms designing a “master plan” for energy use on the site, and there are “a variety of different potential options” they’ll consider to power the stadium. Hanlon allowed that the city did direct those firms to consider natural gas as an option, but he also expects they’ll study electric, solar, and even geothermal power. 

He at one point suggested that a natural gas plant would only be used as a backup, providing a redundant source of power should other systems on site fail: a requirement the NFL mandates for any stadium hoping to host a Super Bowl someday. (Bowser used this prospect as a key selling point for the project.)

But, under questioning from Mendelson, Hanlon also said Pepco’s nearby substation doesn’t have enough capacity to fully power the stadium without some sort of on-site energy generation as well—and that’s where a natural gas plant could become necessary. 

Allen believes the team is overestimating the stadium’s energy demands, noting the Buffalo Bills’ new stadium uses roughly half as much power as the Commanders believe they’ll need, but Hanlon said he can only work with the data the team has provided on this question.

Meanwhile, he said the team plans to submit a request for an exemption to the ban on burning fossil fuels in city-backed projects “in the coming weeks.”

The process involves a presentation to a group of policy experts known as the Green Building Advisory Council (or GBAC), who make a recommendation. But the final say ultimately lives with the city’s Department of Energy and the Environment, which answers to the mayor directly. 

Mendelson argues that it’s “premature” for the Commanders to launch that process until the energy master plan process is completed. He believes this has contributed to the “suspicion” surrounding the Commanders’ plans: “Why would they go to GBAC now and ask for an exemption when they don’t know if they need one?” he wonders. “Unless it’s not a sincere study.”

Hanlon said the rush is merely to keep the project on schedule to meet the 2030 deadline. 

But Ward 3 Councilmember Matt Frumin suggested during the hearing that political considerations could be at play: “Maybe what's going on here is that this administration may want to get that waiver and they may worry that the next administration may not pursue that waiver,” he noted, alluding to the presumptive next mayor, Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George, who has been much more critical of the RFK project. (Her office has not responded to a request for comment). 

Linda Toth, a member of the GBAC who leads sustainability efforts at the engineering firm Arup, argues that the process should be deliberate. It would be “pretty unfair to the incoming mayor to inherit major decisions like this,” she says. 

Toth is wary of approving the construction of new natural gas infrastructure of any kind, arguing it’s a very different set of circumstances than those at Capital One, where the project mainly involved maintaining existing appliances powered by natural gas instead of building new gas facilities.

“So many times, it feels like people are coming to us wearing their armor and their defenses up, that they have to prove that what we’re asking for isn’t possible,” Toth says. “But what we’re asking for is for people to meet us in the middle … we’ll be much more amenable to giving something an exemption when they’ve legitimately tried to make progress somehow.”

Allen hopes these questions from policymakers can help convince the team to take the more collaborative approach Toth outlines and explore different energy options for the site. For instance, he says he’s spoken with several experts suggesting another answer for backup power besides a natural gas plant: Battery storage of renewable energy, a solution the Las Vegas Raiders has already been using at their new stadium.

“Why are we not being innovative?” Allen says. “That's what we should be looking at, not just doing the same old, same old of: Let's just go dig a trench and lay more pipes.”