Congressman Maffei Fights for Green Schools and to Create New Jobs in Our Area

Press Release

Congressman Maffei Fights for Green Schools and to Create New Jobs in Our Area

Today, Congressman Maffei introduced an amendment to the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act to expand opportunities for community colleges and Job Corps programs for at-risk-youths to utilize the funds in Green Schools Facilities Act. Final passage of the entire 21st Century Green High-Performing Public Schools Facilities Act is expected tomorrow. The Maffei amendment passed without opposition earlier today.

Congressman Maffei said: "Our schools should be safe and healthy learning environments for our children. This bill gives us a chance to upgrade our school buildings and boost student achievement while creating good local jobs in new, clean energy industries. The Maffei Amendment that I introduced will also give opportunities to local institutions, like Onondaga Community College and the Job Corps program to utilize federal funding for their programs, which train students and at-risk-youth to be a part of our new, green workforce."

The 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act provides over $6 billion in federal funds to upgrade school buildings to make them more energy efficient and more reliant on renewable sources of energy. The 25th Congressional District of New Yrok will receive approximately more than $11 million in funding because of this bill. The bill also generates long-term savings for schools by reducing energy expenses. Green schools reduce pollution by using about 30% less water and energy than conventional schools, and emit almost 40% less harmful carbon dioxide.

"This is exactly the kind of smart legislation we need to get out of this economic crisis," continued Congressman Maffei. "This bill saves money for our schools, creates jobs and gets us closer to our goal of providing every child with a world class education by giving more students and teachers a safe, environmentally-friendly learning environment. At the same time, it modernizes our schools and prepares our workers for a new, clean American energy economy."

According to calculations by the Economic Policy Institute, this legislation's construction funding would support as many as 136,000 new jobs - many in areas that will give workers the valuable skills they need to excel in a clean energy economy.

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