Green New Deal for Public Schools
Floor Speech
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Mr. BOWMAN. Madam Speaker, this afternoon, we are focused on the Green New Deal. And I want to be very clear about why we need a Green New Deal. Our fossil fuel-driven economy is making us sick and literally killing us. But with historic investments in green infrastructure and the care economy, we can do the opposite. We can repair the damage done and give every person what they need to flourish.
In the Pacific Northwest, we just saw a brutal heat wave that took the lives of 116 people in Oregon, 112 people in Washington, and hundreds more in British Columbia.
We saw catastrophic floods across Europe that killed nearly 200 people, and record-shattering rains that caused deaths in India and China. We are living with wildfires that destroy communities and suffocate us with smoke. Africa is being battered by drought, and Siberia is in flames. We literally saw the ocean on fire.
We now live in a world in which extreme weather driven by climate change is killing 5 million people per year. And in parts of my district, you are three times more likely to die from asthma than anywhere else in the country. We need to be crystal clear about the fact that our economic system created this emergency, while our political system subsidizes and protects the fossil fuel industry. That has to change now.
The Green New Deal provides the framework we need to rebuild our economy, society, and democracy from the ground up. The Green New Deal recognizes that climate change, public health, systemic racism, and economic inequality are all deeply connected. And as you will hear tonight, it gives us a road map for tackling these crises together in a holistic manner.
As a lifelong educator, I see the perfect place to kickstart this process, our K-12 public schools.
Think about it, there is no single institution that touches the lives of more people. We are talking about 50 million young people, plus parents, teachers, staff, workers, and neighbors. Our schools are the heartbeat of our communities, and they must become the epicenter of transformative climate change.
For decades, we have allowed these precious places to be neglected, particularly in redlined parts of the country. We are leaving Black and Brown students and low-income students behind. We over-test the academic ability of our children, but we do not support and engage them as human beings.
And on a physical level, our schools have fallen into a state of disrepair. In my 20 years as a teacher and principal, I saw this every single day. We have schools with no running hot water or drinking fountains that do not work. Schools where the drinking fountains that do work are poisoning our children with lead.
We have schools that are infested with asbestos, mold, and rodents, and that lack proper ventilation. So every day our children face a whole spectrum of urgent health harms. And even as young people march and organize relentlessly for climate action, schools are failing to protect them from climate impacts, like extreme heat. Outdated, inefficient HVAC systems are contributing to carbon pollution and burdening schools with $8 billion in annual energy costs.
Last week, I introduced a bill called the Green New Deal for Public Schools. This is a $1.43 trillion investment over 10 years designed to fundamentally transform our public education system for the 21st century. It will create and support more than 1 million green jobs every year, and it centers the most precious resource in any healthy democracy, our children.
With this legislation, we are going to upgrade and retrofit every single public school in the country, beginning in the poorest and most vulnerable districts. Every school will become a safe, healthy, accessible, and zero-carbon center of the community.
We will remove toxic materials, electrify school facilities, and make them energy-efficient, comfortable, and disaster-proof. We will install solar panels and batteries so that every school generates and controls its own renewable energy. We will create community gardens and green spaces, and offer healthy food options to nourish our children, and so much more.
These investments will be game-changing for schools in a variety of ways. They could see their energy bills roughly cut in half and reinvest the money that they save in the mental and behavioral health resources that our children and families need.
In fact, this bill provides comprehensive funding for healing the trauma of our communities. It will allow schools to hire hundreds of thousands more educators, mental health professionals, school counselors, and other support staff, especially from the local community. It also provides significant resources for school districts to form strong community partnerships and develop curricula that are responsive to unique local needs.
The legislation tackles school inequality at the regional level by quadrupling Title I funding. And it greatly increases IDEA funding for students with disabilities. This is about care; caring for ourselves, each other, our families, our communities, and the planet. That is what the Green New Deal is all about.
Madam Speaker, I yield to my other colleagues who will highlight the many other ways the Green New Deal framework addresses our Nation's urgent needs.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Carolyn B. Maloney), the chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform.
Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague, Congressman Jamaal Bowman, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus for bringing us together today to highlight the importance of the Green New Deal.
Madam Speaker, climate change is one of the single most pressing threats facing this country and the global community, and our most vulnerable communities are bearing the brunt of the consequences. That is why today, as chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, I held a hearing on President Biden's Justice40 Initiative.
During this hearing, we heard from experts about the need to swiftly and effectively implement this initiative to ensure that the communities hardest hit by pollution, poverty, and public health risks receive a fair share of our Nation's climate and infrastructure investments.
As chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, I am committed to ensuring that the administration and all Federal agencies have the tools they need to implement the Justice40 Initiative. This is crucial to ensuring that our climate investments advance racial and economic justice.
Beyond the Justice40 Initiative, we need to prioritize policy solutions here in Congress that really focus on climate justice. For New York City, that means investing in a green future for public housing and for our public schools.
This past Earth Day, I reintroduced the Public Housing Solar Equity Act, which would guarantee that any solar energy generated on public housing land benefits the residents of those developments first.
Looking beyond solar energy, all public housing repairs and modernization projects should be green, which is exactly what the Green New Deal for Public Housing does. This bill will provide funding to electrify all buildings, add solar panels, and secure renewable energy sources for all public housing energy needs. In short, it will make Federal housing cleaner, safer, and greener.
Housing is a human right that no New Yorker, no American, should go without. As we work to make sure everyone has access to the clean affordable housing they need and deserve, let's expand our goals to make these communities green, too.
For the health of our residents and for our environment, we cannot afford to do anything less.
For the health of our students, we need a Green New Deal for Public Schools, a transformative and unprecedented investment that will not only make our schools greener but also expand services for our students. My colleague, Jamaal Bowman, is a former educator and has authored this important bill, of which I am a cosponsor.
We are in a state of emergency. The West is burning; cities are flooding; and extreme weather events are becoming all too common. We need to act now, and we need to act boldly.
For the health and safety of all Americans, for environmental and social justice, let's make a Green New Deal. We can't afford to do anything less.
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from New York (Mr. Bowman) for focusing on education and our environment and putting both of them together creatively with the Green New Deal for Public Schools.
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Mr. BOWMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Ocasio-Cortez), who is the original Green New Deal champion in Congress and who has done so much in collaboration with social movements to inject this vision into the consciousness of America. Her Green New Deal for Public Housing was a major inspiration for my schools legislation.
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Mr. BOWMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano), the chair of the Veterans' Affairs Committee.
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Mr. BOWMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).
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Mr. BOWMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cardenas).
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Mr. BOWMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Ms. Bush), to whom I want to wish a very happy birthday today.
Ms. Bush is another powerful Green New Deal champion who has introduced a fantastic Green New Deal For Cities bill. I also had the pleasure of working with Ms. Bush on our public power resolution.
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Mr. BOWMAN. Madam Speaker, it is amazing, whether we are talking about the Bronx, New York; St. Louis, Missouri; or New Mexico, it is obvious that a Green New Deal is needed now.
Madam Speaker, I would like to close by returning to one particular aspect of the Green New Deal for Public Schools because I think it highlights something about the framework as a whole. For me, one of the most exciting parts of the Green New Deal for Public Schools is how the learning environment in every school will be enriched, putting our young people at the center of the green energy revolution.
Students will delve into every aspect of the building retrofit process and immerse themselves in the broader sustainability and social challenges that we are tackling as a society. Each school will become a living lab for the Green New Deal. I cannot think of a better way to nurture the curiosity, ingenuity, and imaginations of our children. We will be kick-starting climate, STEM, and STEAM careers across the United States, and our country will reap the benefits of all that creativity.
The Green New Deal for Public Schools and the entire Green New Deal framework is built on the foundation of care and healing and allowing everyone in this country to unlock their full potential.
This is an idea that is expressed in Tupac Shakur's brilliant poem ``The Rose That Grew from Concrete.'' Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk without having feet. Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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