to meet these needs through the depletion of strategic resources, long-term environmental harm or pollution, contributing to an unsafe climate, or any other measures as deemed by the Secretary with consultation from the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality. (23) The term United States means the fifty States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the United States Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands, and associated territorial waters and airspace. (24) The term waste net zero refers to any building which through the reduction, reuse, recycling, composting, or recovery of solid waste streams (with the exception of any hazardous materials or medical waste) results in the elimination of any waste that is sent for disposal to landfills or incinerators. (25) The term water balance means a comparison of the water supplied to a defined system to the water consumed by that system in order to identify the proportion of water consumed for specific end-uses and ensure potential water leaks in the system are addressed. (26) The term water net zero means any building which returns water to the original water source such that the annual water consumption is equivalent to the alternative water use plus water returned to the original source over the course of a year through practices that minimize total water consumption, maximize alternative water sources, and minimize wastewater discharge from the building.