Rob Bishop: “When this bill was originally introduced by the gentleman from Kentucky, it would have required the Department of Energy…”

“When this bill was originally introduced by the gentleman from Kentucky, it would have required the Department of Energy to conduct a study of needs nationwide and then provided grants to meet those needs. This doesn't quite do it. There have been no studies. NCE did one about 8 years ago which talked on a regional basis but not anything more specific. Another study was done about 3 years ago, and instead of trying to identify construction needs, this bill tracks money based on title I spending, which simply asks the question, is there a connection between construction needs and the distribution formula in this particular bill? If not, and this bill escapes, we will be coming back repeatedly with ideas that we need to tweak this or that in the effort to create some kind of fairness for the future. At the committee I raised the question, because my State has an equalization formula, not just for maintenance and operation which is programmed, but also for capital outlay. And I asked how this bill would impact my State and I was told we would find that out; get back with you. That still has yet to happen. So let me try and tell you what this particular bill would do in my State as it relates to how we fund construction needs within a State. The State of Utah has two different categories, historically. First of all, we have continuing school building aid which basically went for areas that were overcrowded, where there was a surge of students creating crowded school conditions.”