The US Department of Energy (DOE) believes energy efficiency begins at home -- in this case the James A. Forrestal Building in Washington, D.C. Since 1969, the 1.7 million-square-foot Forrestal Building has served as DOE Headquarters. In 1989, a team of in-house energy specialists began searching for opportunities to make the Forrestal Building more energy efficient. The team, on which personnel from the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) served, identified lighting as an area in which energy use could be reduced substantially. A monitoring program showed that the building's more than 34,000 1-foot by 4-foot fluorescent lighting fixtures were responsible for 33% of the building's total annual electric energy use, which represents more than 9 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year. In initiating the relighting program, DOE hoped to achieve these broad goals: Reduce energy use and utility bills, and improve lighting quality by distributing the light more uniformly. Funding was also an important consideration. DOE sought financing alternatives through which the lighting retrofit is paid for without using government-appropriated capital funds. DOE cut lighting costs more than 50% and paid for the project with the money saved on energy bills.