Dive Brief:

• After getting permission to use Green Globes as an environmental scoring system for its construction projects, the Department of Defense got permission to design for all levels of LEED status.
• The agency had been banned from spending to design or build structures to hit LEED gold and platinum standards, but the appropriations law for the government for the rest of this fiscal year left out those restrictions.
• The Department of Defense was given permission to use LEED for third party building certification at the same time it got the go-ahead for Green Globes.

Dive Insight:

The appropriations law carries the government through Sept. 30. It is unclear whether the department will want to do any projects seeking the higher LEED qualifications in the current political climate. The gold and platinum permission could go away again for Fiscal 2015, and projects designed to those levels in this fiscal year might or might not be grandfathered in a new spending scheme.