President Barack Obama signed an executive order last week that requires U.S. government agencies to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 40% from 2008 levels by 2025 by procuring 25% of their total energy from renewable sources.

“We thought it was important for us to lead by example,” Obama told a group of IT executives last week. “We’re proving that it is possible to grow our economy robustly while at the same time doing the right thing for our environment and tackling climate change in a serious way.”

A White House advisor said the 40% target would save U.S. taxpayers $18 billion per year and cut greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 5.5 million cars.

The executive order “builds on a 2010 directive from the White House requiring 35 U.S. agencies to limit their energy consumption to help combat climate change,” Bloomberg reports. “Private companies that contract with the federal government have also agreed to pursue emissions reductions in concert with the most recent directive.”

Earlier in the week, Obama commented that too many elected officials are “shills for fossil fuel industry,” Politico reported.

“There’s a lot of money involved,” the President said in an interview with Vice founder Shane Smith. “Typically in Congress, the committees of jurisdiction, like the energy committees, are populated by folks from places that pump a lot of oil and pump a lot of gas.”