21st Century Green High-Performance Public School Facilities Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, Members of the House, as has been stated earlier in this debate, this is a very important piece of legislation that is geared to improve the condition of school buildings all across the country, and it does so while promoting energy efficiency through green buildings and creating jobs to help stimulate our economy.

I have a manager's amendment which I believe further improves the bill by providing equitable treatment of charter schools while ensuring that the school district can put all of its funds to good use; by allowing schools to give priority to projects designed to remove hazardous material like asbestos and carcinogens; by setting aside more funds for tribal and outlying areas; and finally, allowing funds to be used for water supply and building envelopes. I think these are valuable changes. I want to thank Representatives Polis, Matheson, Kirkpatrick and Pingree for their insights and leadership on these changes.

Mr. Chairman, critics of this legislation have argued that it intrudes on the traditional role and responsibility of the States. But this is not about Federal versus State and local control of school construction and repair. It is about meeting the urgent needs that will help revamp this Nation's schools, improve student learning and global competitiveness, lower the costs for schools and taxpayers, and help us create jobs. I urge support of the manager's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, the manager's amendment I would hope would pass. The discussion about what was the Polis amendment in the committee to make sure that charter schools got a fair share of this money in fact remains intact. The problem with that amendment in the committee was that new charter schools would have in fact been precluded from having access to that money since they weren't in existence and the amendment originally spoke to those charter schools in existence.

As with the original amendment, this will be done in consultation with the school board. If there isn't a demonstrated need among the charter schools, the money goes back into the pot for the use of the schools. That's, in fact, how it was done in the original amendment. Mr. Polis, as the author of that amendment, has agreed to this change to make sure that we include all charter schools at that time. I urge passage of the amendment.

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