Peter Welch: “I thank my colleague from Texas. This bill is important. I am here with my colleague Mr. Cartwright, who will be…”

“I thank my colleague from Texas. This bill is important. I am here with my colleague Mr. Cartwright, who will be speaking on this in a few minutes and who played a major role in the passage of this legislation. Even though he is not a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, he is very much concerned about the opportunities that occur when we make our energy use more efficient. Across the country, K-12 school districts spend literally billions of dollars on their energy bills each year while an estimated 14 million American children attend deteriorating public schools. According to a Department of Education survey, 43 percent of schools indicated that the poor condition of their facilities interferes with the delivery of instruction, and those are probably schools in my district and in all of our colleagues'. By upgrading these systems, we can increase efficiency and get better educational outcomes. It is not good for kids to be cold or too hot when they are trying to study and learn. There are numbers of Federal initiatives already available to schools to help them become more energy efficient, but the problem is these programs are spread across the entire Federal Government, making it difficult for a small school, particularly in a rural district, to know where to look and how to take full advantage of these programs. That is where this legislation comes in.…”