Washington, DC

The Environmental Protection Agency last year threw out more than 140 tons of printed materials that had been kept at one federal storage facility, but only after internal investigators at the EPA started asking why millions of agency publications were sitting around unused, raising new questions about the waste of taxpayer dollars at federal government warehouses. It isn't the first time the EPA Inspector General has raised questions about how much money the EPA is spending on storage facilities, as last year a report found a warehouse in suburban Washington, DC, which was filled with unused furniture...

Big news out of Washington, DC, during an otherwise sleepy week on Capitol Hill. The Obama Administration announced a one year delay (or "transition relief") of the employer mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) currently scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2014. The mandate would require employers with 50 or more full-time equivalent workers to provide health insurance at prescribed levels or to face penalties and fees starting at $2,000 per worker.

Sustainable Green Printing (SGP) Partnership, a non-profit organization providing sustainability certification in the graphic communications industry, announced that the Washington, DC location of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) has attained SGP Certification.

USPS announced at the February Mailers Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) meeting its plans to retire the POSTNET barcode in January 2013.

Pitney Bowes Government Solutions, Inc. (PBGS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Pitney Bowes Inc., announced the opening of the Pitney Bowes Federal Litigation Support Center (FLSC) in downtown Washington, DC, to provide quicker turnaround on litigation support projects to the federal marketplace.

The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) won the Best Public Office Building Recycling Program award, which recognizes a business or agency that is leading the charge to make their environmental footprint in Washington, DC more sustainable.