Mike Conaway: “I'm glad to speak against this rule and against this bill in itself. First off, this is not a Federal responsibility…”

“I'm glad to speak against this rule and against this bill in itself. First off, this is not a Federal responsibility, this is a State and local responsibility. And to the extent that we spend Federal taxpayer dollars, this isn't the Federal Government doing this; there is no such thing as the Federal Government doing this; this is the Federal taxpayer doing this. So you've got taxpayers on one hand funding their local schools; you've got Federal taxpayers funding those same local schools. This is a wreck of bureaucratic nightmare. This should not happen. We're not fully funding IDEA, we're not fully funding title I; this is just something new. So it's because it's new that we can get away with acting like this is something that's good, and it's not because we're not fully funding what we should be. Electrical costs in our schools are very high, no doubt about it. And the truth of the matter is we can't conserve our way into lowering those electricity costs because electricity cost generation is going to continue to go up. And as this majority continues to restrict the growth in clean coal burning technology, as they continue to restrict the growth in nuclear power plants, they're going to continue to drive electricity costs higher and higher. Now we all like wind, we all like solar, but the truth of the matter is growth in those alternatives cannot even keep up with the growth in the demand for electricity.”