Lawmakers scrambling for ways to tighten Congress' belt in fiscal 2013 legislative branch appropriations haven't been helped by the Architect of the Capitol.

The AOC is requesting a $101 million increase over fiscal 2012, which would bring the agency's appropriation to $668 million, up 18 percent from this year's spending -- the largest increase sought by a legislative branch agency.

Lawmakers have made a point in the past two years of cutting the legislative branch budget to set an example for decreased government spending. This year, AOC is working with a 5 percent cut that prompted hiring freezes, dimmed lights and a growing list of delayed maintenance projects.

Architect of the Capitol Stephen Ayers, who appeared before Senate appropriators yesterday to defend his budget request, blamed an ever-growing backlog of deferred maintenance and Capitol renewal projects.

That backlog amounts to more than $1.6 billion worth of projects, Ayers told the Senate Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). But the AOC has prioritized the scores of projects on that list, and this year is asking for $161 million to cover what it considers the 16 most pressing projects.

Among the highest priority projects is a plan to install two new high-efficiency centrifugal chillers and associated cooling equipment at the Capitol Power Plant's West Refrigeration Plant. The project is designed to decrease the existing burden on four chillers that are more than 30 years old. The current system was pushed to the limit during last year's hot and humid summer, he said.

"We are very nervous and very anxious," Ayers said. "If we have another hot summer, we will potentially be unable to provide enough chilled water to air condition our buildings."

Another big ticket item is the ongoing renovation of the Capitol Dome. The project includes repairing and restoring ironwork, sandstone and brick masonry around the foot of the dome. That phase of the project is expected to be completed this fall, but AOC said it must address a host of repairs and upgrades on the interior and exterior of the structure.

Along with explaining the reasons for his office's budget increase, Ayers also sought to point out the ways in which the AOC has saved Congress money in recent years. He pointed out that in fiscal 2011 AOC was able to reduce energy costs by $2.5 million compared to fiscal 2010.

AOC hopes to add to those savings this year after it finalized a plan last year to send as much as 90 percent of the Capitol Complex's nonrecyclable solid waste to local waste-to-energy facilities.

The plan is for about 5,600 tons of Congress' trash to be shipped to local high-temperature incinerators and used to fuel generators that put electricity back on the grid.

Eventually, AOC said it hopes to implement a cogeneration system at the Capitol Power Plant that would add to the Capitol campus' long-term energy savings. The system would use combustion turbines to generate both steam and electricity that would help to offset the electricity used by the power plant and reduce AOC's reliance on existing, aging boilers.