Green Schools Appropriations Pass House

May 14 the House of Representatives passed HR 2187, the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act. Replacing appropriations cut from the stimulus legislation in the Senate, the bill appropriates $6.4 billion for modernization, renovation and repairs to public school buildings to improve health, safety and energy efficiency. The funds may not be used for building new schools. The money may be used for repairs and upgrades to roofs, HVAC, fire, health, life safety and seismic code requirements, ADA accessibility, asbestos, lead, PBC mold and mildew abatement, noise reduction, reducing consumption of coal, electricity, natural gas, oil or water, post consumer recycled materials on playground equipment, and a few other esoteric "green" modernizations.

There is also a separate appropriation of $600 million over six years for rebuilding schools damaged by hurricanes Rita and Katrina.

Funds may not be used to pay maintenance costs, or for construction of any athletic facility charging admission to the general public. "Buy American" requirements for iron, steel, and manufactured goods are included in the bill, along with contracting preference requirements for local, small business, minority, women and veteran owned contractors. In 2010, 50% of any grant must be used for green construction, with the percentage increasing ten percent a year up to 100% in 2015. Finally, the bill prohibits earmarking of any of the funds.

It will be most interesting to see how this legislation fares in the Senate, which cut these very appropriations from the stimulus bill.

State Applications For Education Stimulus Funds Lagging

With the July 1 deadline approaching rapidly, Education Secretary Arne Duncan reports that only 22 of the 50 states have applied for their shares of the $48.6 billion state fiscal stabilization fund designed to save teacher jobs across the nation. Only a total of $13 billion has been distributed to 13 different states, though the Education Department stood ready to dole out as much as $32.4 billion of the money by April 1 this year. Secretary Duncan says his staff can review and approve applications in nine days, but the state paperwork has not even been submitted by 28 states as of yesterday. You would think states wanting to avoid teacher layoffs when school starts in the fall would have deposited these checks already.