being present to a committee on education labor will come to order for the purpose of conducting a markup on the twenty first century high performance public schools facilities act of two thousand and eight budget this legislation is a strong example of how well crafted public policy can address a number of key challenges that once this bill has something in it for improving education the economy and the environment first by improving school facilities this legislation will help improve student achievement by providing more children and teachers with a modern save clean and healthy place for learning second the legislation will give a boost the economy by injecting demand into the faltering u s construction industry and third this legislation will help make are school part of the solution to global warming crises by encouraging more energy efficient as well as the use of renewable energy resources any one of these three reasons would be enough to support this bill but when you put all three of them together this is a clear win for  children workers and the planet for children and teachers an unfortunate the reality of too many communities in the us is that schools are literally crumbling in two thousand and national center in education statistics said it would take one hundred twenty seven billion dollars to bring schools into good condition concluding that seventy five percent of schools are in various stages of disrepair the national education association has put that figures would have to three hundred twenty two billion dollars and the american society  civil engineers gave us schools a d on its national infrastructure report card most recently that two thousand and six building educational success together said the previous studies grossly underestimated the need of school improvements in new construction saying the ne in schools serving the low income and minority students substandard conditions in our schools make it harder for teachers to teach and children to learn research has found a relationship between faculty quality and student achievement and independent of other factors for our economy allowing a much needed school upgrade to go on completed represents a miss opportunity for creating jobs and stimulating growth last month the construction industry lost fifty one thousand jobs more than any other industry in the economy and equal to roughly two thirds of all of the jobs lost kaname wide invest in a school modernization will create jobs where they are desperately needed through jobs and supply purchases such investment will inject spending into local economies which are particularly important in a time when local governments required by law  budgets or reducing spending for the environment when we must ask the government to take a leadership role in driving these new innovations to fight global warming and in including in our schools there is no longer any doubt that humans are contributing to global warming and i meant change we know the buildings are a major source of heat trapping greenhouse gases and we must also reduce emissions caused by the building by boosting energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy green buildings can also improve children's academic achievement and health in two thousand and four commissioned by the u s department of education found the poor environments in school school primary caused by indoor pollutants hurt the health performance and attendance of students the american lung association a tip or the asthma accounts for more than fourteen million miss school days per year since one of the key factors in student learning is time spent in class this is a problem both for children's health and for academic achievement green schools typically use one third less energy and one third less water than conventional schools reduce energy use alone could save an average school hundred thousand dollars a year according to the u s green building council the legislation before us today is simple it authorizes six point four billion dollars in for fiscal year two thousand and nine assures a school districts around the country will quickly receive funds for school modernization renovation repair project it also authorizes an additional hundred million dollars per year for the next five years for schools in the gulf region affected by hurricanes katrina and rita h r thirty twenty one allocates the same percentage of funds to states and schools this is that they receive under party of title one of the elementary secondary education act except that it guarantees each district a minimum of five thousand dollars h r thirty twenty one and a sub funds to be used in projects that meet one of the three widely recognized green standards the leads environmental design standard in the energy star the collaborative for higher performance schools or equivalent state or local standards already at least twenty six school districts in california have voluntarily adopted the so called chips standard of the collaborative for high performance schools the legislation allows a waiver from the green building new car missing cases where circumstances make them impractical but an issue but ensures a ninety percent the funds will be used for green projects by twenty third teen we cannot provide every child with world class education less we help states in school just use improve the education improve the condition of the school buildings and the facilities yet in two thousand and one the federal government has provided almost no direct aid sensis easy since two thousand when the federal government has provided almost no direct aid to help states and schools pay for school construction repair we must invest in making every school a place the community can be proud substitute and congressman holt for his leadership on this very important issue and i would also like to thank congresswoman darlene hooley who is a head of the green schools caucus and i urge my colleagues support this when when legislation with that i'd like to yield for the purpose of an open it to mr congressman mckeon the senior republican of the committee thank you chairman miller you are certainly keeping us on our toes this week what with multiple pieces of legislation on the floor of the house and a major markup here this morning the business facing our committee this week runs the gamut from nondiscrimination protections to workplace safety to school facilities and while i'm hesitant to try to compare one bill to another this week or any week i must say i'm feeling especially the easy about the bill before us being rushed through the legislative process amid so many other important legislative matters once again legislation is being brought immediately to the full committee sidestepping the subcommittee process we hardly even take note anymore of the fact that our subcommittees are playing no meaningful role in the development of legislation while this strategy certainly does allow you to move quickly i do not always believe it makes for the best policy and while this pattern of moving quickly with limited opportunity for debate is always a cause for it can crn i think it's particularly troublesome this morning we are here today to consider a bill that fundamentally changes the federal role in education i'll say it again this bill that fundamentally changes the federal role in education traditionally states and local communities have retained control all registration particularly public k twelve education federal intervention has been targeted narrowly to fulfill a pressing need while maintaining the autonomy and authority of communities for instance the no child left behind act is intended to help close the achievement gap between disadvantaged students and their peers by providing additional funding and support for schools that serve low income and disadvantaged students the individuals with disabilities education act is intended to support our commitment that children with disabilities have a fundamental right to a free and appropriate public education neither of these replaces the rights and responsibilities that lie with states and communities the federal investment in education is important it allows us to set national priorities and to support states and local communities in their efforts to ensure a special educational opportunity however although this modest targeted federal intervention is appropriate there are very real concerns about extending the federal role i for one can hardly think of a single responsibility more fundamental to a community than the building and maintenance of its schools of course it goes without saying that schools are where children learn but there are also neighborhood gathering places they host school plays and community meetings there were many citizens exercise their civic duty by voting what we're contemplating today is to take that most basic state and local all and begin to federalize it i recognize that there are philosophical differences on whether or not we should be heading down this path and so it is only fair that i focus not just on the question of whether we should be heading down this path clearly i believe we should not but also on the question of how any federal school construction mandate what operates the fact is any federal intervention into school construction carries with it significant burdens for instance we know that depression areas davis bacon wage mandates can drive up the costs of federal projects meaning that we get less bang for our buck in a time of liberal limited federal resources it's fair to ask why we would drain funds from other critical education priorities in order to fund and inefficient construction mandate we also know that great strides have been made in partnerships between states localities and the private sector to develop state of the art school facilities rather than stifling these innovative strategies with the new federal program and the red tape that comes with it we should be encouraging creative approaches at the local level a new federal program may create perverse disincentives for states  communities to continue these important investments finally i don't think we can have an honest debate about school construction without acknowledging the true scope of the issue the need for construction and renovation of our nation schools has been estimated at one hundred twelve billion dollars states are spending about twenty billion dollars annually these figures dwarf the federal spending that we're talking about this bill authorizes somewhere in the neighborhood of six billion dollars next year this is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to school construction needs but it's only half of annual appropriations for the individuals with disabilities education act this  question are we going to drain resources from pressing needs like i d e a and title one in order to provide funding that won't even begin to address the need for building and maintenance to call this a case of misplaced priorities would be a gross understatement mr chairman i appreciate your commitment to the nation's schools i also recognize that there is a genuine need for school construction and renovation but i am deeply troubled by the bill that is being brought before us today and the manner in which it is being considered we will offer amendments that attempt to blunt some of the most distressing problems with this bill but on the whole i believe the very premise of this bill is flawed and i will oppose it i thank the gentleman and the critical designate the bill h r three zero to on the twenty first century high performing public school facilities act i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading of the bill here no objection so ordered i now recognize mr loeb sack to call up an amendment in the nature of a substitute the amendment is at the desk and has been distributed to the members and it is and as i understand it's in each of your folders in the considered as read and will be considered original text for the purposes of amendment and open for amendment at any point and the author of the of the substitute mr loeb's is recognized for five minutes to describe a substitute  tell regarding the day the deteriorating condition of school facilities and their state however despite growing the federal funding has been largely unavailable to leverage local spending and i know the word here leverage that's what this is about leveraging formula each local educational agency will receive a minimum grant of five thousand dollars and there is a specific reservation of funds for public schools in the gulf region i believe the formal allocation of funds extremely important  ensuring that all states benefit from this legislation however i am aware of the concerns of the rural community that small high poverty schools predominantly in rural districts may continue to be overlooked i'm hopeful that when this bill becomes law school districts will on those schools that are most in need of modernisation repair and renovation and particularly those rural and high poverty schools that are struggling the most remain committed to continuing to work with this committee to ensure fair and equitable treatment of rural schools as we administrators according to the g a o almost two thirds of schools have building features such as air conditioning that are in need of expensive repair or replacement leaving the air that is unfit to brave the nearly fifteen thousand schools and we know that a large and growing body of rita i would note that it's rare for a new member to take a leading role on such an important issue but as you know mr chairman we are blessed with many very talented new members on this committee and so i want to congratulate  demonstrate how necessary this legislation is for our children and educators telling not go over that ground but some years ago mr chairman you heard me tell this story many times in my thirty two years here a judge jail for school because that jail was in better shape than some of the schools in that area and that is a sad commentary on that i also remember years ago sitting on the budget committee poring over spreadsheets we have budgets our values and how you know you have values and as we crunch numbers that wasn't cut here she turned to us and said but how will this affect the people and the people look at her people how people get out of this budget but she brought us back to reality that budgeting and programs and authorisations and appropriations really are valuable things to the mind of those at the federal budget is more than a collection of ensure that the buildings in which they learn and teach are safe healthy and up to date educationally children are smart when they see their school crumbling around them by children of who miles away are in a beautiful school then know that our society has made the choice not to give them the kind of school building they deserve in my own district i can go from one school to another school six miles away and see something that is like a prison and one that's like a hyatt regency because of the tax base different tax bases there's not a message that we can afford to send our children we must send every child a message not only to high standards but by providing the resources and facilities necessary to meet the standards that we could evaluate every one of those children and i think again school in and richmond on the d c trip come on in here don't be bashful just come on and some are going to have to sit on the floor here for a little bit we're improving the facilities the but we'll get that we'll get to this room later but come in and feel free just  some of the students take the empty chairs or sit down and you're welcome to stay as long as you as long as you would like with that i'd like to recognize mr holt gentleman from new jersey for five minutes mr chairman i move to strike the last word thank you  and i'm pleased to see that you've invited students here following mr kilties commendation of our colleague mr woolsey for reminding us that that's what this is about as we talk about improving the buildings and spending billions of dollars for energy upgrades of course it is to improve the education and to build the future for children such as those from richmond who have joined us this morning and i want to as we on the committee know all too well our nation's k through twelve schools face a number of challenges due to the larger population increasing community expectations and aging facilities schools are hampered from being able to achieve the needed improvements because of constrained operating budgets the six point four billion dollars in this bill authorized over the next five fiscal years will help meet pressing school improvements and make the necessary modern and modernizations possible for many schools and thereby improving the educational opportunities for many students to important also that this bill requires that the improvements in modernizations be taken undertaken in environmentally friendly and energy efficient ways so i thank the chairman for incorporating parts of mind in schools legislation the school building enhanced  act into the substitute before us i introduced this legislation in two thousand and five after learning that energy bills were the second highest oper second highest operating expenditure for schools following personnel costs and that much of this expense was unnecessary another words with more efficient use of energy costs could be cut by twenty even twenty five percent these improvements will allow school districts to make those efficiency changes and save that money as well as reducing the carbon emissions the greenhouse gas emissions recent data showed that schools were paying six billion dollars annually on energy more than the amount spent on textbooks and computers combined that since we interest in science reduced that legislation that number has increased under the substitute states will be able to provide technical assistance to local educational agencies and to help schools develop an energy efficiency quality plan as had been requested by new jerseyans so i thank the chairman for including these things and i also want to thank the chairman for and accepting other suggestions that  we had made one is measuring and reporting on the carbon footprint of schools under the bill states must create a plan to develop a database of public school facilities in the state and their energy usage and i'm pleased that this bill will require schools to report on their carbon footprint buildings are responsible for a large fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions in the united states and by having an adequate measure of the admission schools will be able to set goals for reducing those emission s along with their energy use with an eventual goal of becoming carbon neutral a second is support for better known contractors this legislation will support our nation's military veterans by adding veteran owned businesses to the contracting preference for small minority and women owned businesses and as the war in iraq continues to well swell the veteran population it's our duty i think to help to ensure that returning soldiers have jobs to come home to so i thank the chairman for including all of these good features in what is i think now an outstanding piece of legislation colleagues who worked on this legislation still upset mr kildee mr holt for bringing this very important issue of school construction to this critical point and before the committee as a former school board member for twelve years i can tell you and i can attest to that schools local communities and states welcome this federal intervention welcome to stop or to provide equitable school facilities for all their students i think the research demonstrate that the environment in which a child is taught is an enormous has an enormous impact on the child's ability to learn at the same time all over the country there are probably schools and districts with strapped budgets and so i applaud the chairman and my colleagues for addressing this issue here today and offering this tremendous opportunity for schools to get the resources to make long necessary improvements and to create official and environmental responsibility i might add that this is not a issue of robbing peter to pay paul in terms of priorities but rather an unfortunate acknowledgement of the underfunding and backlogs our educational system system has endured in accumulated over the last seven years because of national priorities that have not put education in the top tier in terms of support and resources while we are addressing this much needed change and tried to do so with the required deliberate s s i do not want us to overlook a very important aspect of the structure of a school and that is the school library school libraries the library media specialist also have a profound positive effect on student achievement i wish  take this opportunity to remind states school districts local communities when taking advantage of these grants that today's bill will make available to keep in mind the important role of libraries and library media specialist their and the role they play in the success of their students effectively improving the state of our educational system today will require addressing all the problems that our schools and students face the commitment we make today to eight states from school districts and improving their facilities is one of these important steps i want to thank you mr chairman and i in new jersey's been calculated twenty to twenty five percent actually in connecticut the eastern connecticut state university institute for energy self sufficiency did an inventory of school buildings and caddick in two thousand and six and actually found that if we attained a fifty ranking energy star ranking which is pretty modest in terms of energy efficiency standards we would actually save thirty percent in terms of the energy costs that are presently being expended by school districts  that was two thousand and six fuel costs that were calculated at that time obviously with a dollar twenty barrel of oil the impact on school districts because of the fact that we have building technology which goes back to an era which was quite different in terms of energy costs creating a terrible choice for school boards having to decide whether to heat buildings or or maintain instructional programs so this effort that again m leading the way on is something that i think is very important to making sure that school districts that have high energy costs are going to be able to maintain their educational programs and i certainly applaud his efforts and urge  back i thank the gentleman and before i recognize the shape orders let me just say to the members under the rules of the house we will not be able to continue sitting in the in the committee during the joint session is our expectation that we will when people are done speaking support for this bill and to thank all those who were involved and anybody who toward a public recently i understand how critical this is when we talk about misplaced priorities i think we need to remember that we have a billion dollars every other i think that there really isn't this is not a debate about energy versus other other kinds of savings what we're talking about is the federal government getting involved building local schools now i was on a school board years ago and i remember we had a very good superintendent and we had maintenance problems in our school district and i remember him bringing in people from the community outside to look at it which was kind of a dangerous thing to do because they could have said well you haven't been doing the job for the last ten years but what he was really trying to do was find out how we could work together to solve our our maintenance problems our long range maintenance problems and they pointed out several things that we could do about time this was many years ago we weren't talking about green we weren't talking about just trying to keep a roof over our heads the rain would be bothering us in southern california sometimes we get rain and  what we did was as a part of our budget we set aside money for long term maintenance so i'm trying to visualize members of local school boards now thinking why should we set aside our money for maintenance when we can go to the federal government and that's what happens in city councils what happens in local school boards time we start taking over for the local governments we start finding that it's easier to get money from the federal government than to set aside your own taxpayer dollars and use that for other things and so what we're what we're really talking about in this debate is what is federal responsibility what is state and what is local responsibility and i come now if you want to speak but we're going to we're going to we're going to we're going to recess until after the state because we can't sit yeah whatever your heart desires i'm a very flexible chair mr cassels recognize that's part of the flexibility to be inflexible well thank you mr chairman for being such a flexible chair we appreciate that i  to speak partially the members partially to the legislation itself the amendment doesn't give me great heartburn although i'm concerned we start talking about green schools and those kinds of things that we're going to take minor repairs and all  all of high expenditure in order to accommodate that particular problem but the whole concept of what we're doing here really does can concern me i have an amendment later on saying that we need to fund title one an idea a fully before we could do something like this but i think it's beyond that and i know there are arguments itchy if we got out of iraq we could afford all this or whatever it may be is all kinds of economic arguments but the bottom line is that while this looks relatively   on an expenditure level it was six point four billion dollars something that nature my sense is this has the potential to grow asli as i understand it the needs right now in our schools exceed one hundred billion dollars and that's that's a stated needs with local and state funding my sense is that once you get the federal government involved as a leveraging mechanism that need will double almost overnight there's virtually no school that would like to be better than it is probably everybody here has been educated in very good modern classrooms and in in rather reversed circumstances of rather wretched classrooms and the truth matters or education probably revolve more around our teachers and the programs they did  around the facilities i'm just very concerned that we're we are really biting into something beyond our ability to manage from a fiscal point of view not now not necessarily in this legislation but in the future if we were to do this i do think the pressure each year would be to spend more and more and more and that concerns me probably not a single member here who's not been involved in school referenda we know how difficult it is in most cases is shared by the local taxing authority of a school district and by the states it's difficult sometimes they pass sometimes they don't when they don't pass usually they come back at a lesser number get a pass the next time we get the photo government involved all of us and that's just going to go up tremendously and i don't care whether we're just a a factor or the major factor wherever it's going to work i just think you're going to you're going to see huge pressure do increase the expenditures from our levels and you know we as a as a congress have not fully funded i we probably not done all we should do and title one and a variety of other federal programs we have really stayed away from school construction with some exceptions to certain minority populations and military bases and matters of that nature but it's not been something we've gotten into but i think of all the things we could concoct that would be a scheme for getting us into a rapid growth expenditure this is probably number one because of the the need which is out there  and i just i just have a great deal of caution about this and i hate to oppose something when i favor the bottom line of what it would do which is to improve our schools but the bottom line is what can the federal government get to new to do and as i said we have not carried out our responsibility fully and you can blame republicans you can blame anyone you want but the bottom line is that there are obligations that we have to help with the actual teaching of these students who are not doing correctly and my judgment is that we get into this we're going to want to probably both of these two things we're going to take away funding from other educational resources or at least flatten the growth in those areas and we're going to enter into a spending mechanism in this time of great deficits which we really cannot manage and the you know if i said the i know i'm speaking more generally about the bill then about the m m a t m m it makes me a little cautious because of the green aspects of and i'm all for the green aspects of anything we can do but i'm a little worried that we're can always talk about the tradeoffs of what we're not doing and therefore we can't go forward and it's a legitimate argument but the absence of school construction hasn't we haven't done those things either i think this is this is the beginning of a debate in this country  on a couple of fronts one is what is our real commitment to these schools clearly that we believe and i believe that the federal government should be a partner this isn't about taking over that role this is about whether or not we do as we do in so many other areas where we partner up and we're able we're able to states and localities are able to complete complete projects i would hope that this congress would be so enthused over this project that they would continue to provide additional commitment when we see the unmet need and we and we all know we've all visited the schools that you would not want your child to go to and to spend that kind of time in and we had to get down with that with respect to where the green drives up the price what we're seeing across the real estate field in the private sector that these changes are in fact developing huge bottom line profits in the private sector and in the public sector huge savings in terms of administration of that of those of those facilities and we should try and drive those to the benefit of local school districts ourselves deeper and deeper in debt we're finding a weaker and weaker dollar so that they want to be paid more and more dollars to make up for the weakness of the dollar we're now seeing maybe an announcement today that one of the major providers was going to insist on purchasing  the faster we get our energy house in order and certainly with respect to local districts the greater the savings will be and the less our reliance will be this is a part of that of that commitment and you know i think that with the  place this is going to provide some modicum of assistance to the to those to those decisions and it's also if we were fortunate enough to to enact this law in a relatively short period time it would also provide some countercyclical assistance in terms of the economy of this country with with with good paying jobs i think mr souder wants to be recognized and then if there are there are others who want wish to be heard then after mr souder we will we will recess for the state of the union i mean for the sake of the joint session of the irish union and the state of the another category and the question is should we be opening up new categories i favor green schools life i favor trying to deal with our increasing number of veterans that's not the fundamental question in front of us is whether we're going to open up another category and that is school construction this is a huge issue in the state of indiana because we have a law in indiana partly because we're trying to equalize school funding ratios that allows districts to bond for buildings but they can't change their tax rates for actual education whether it's for teachers allergies or other types of things because it leads to an equalization this is led to a building spree in the state of indiana and we often have new schools with increasing class sizes with all sorts of other shortages because we have a disincentive this is led to a consumer backlash in the city of fort wayne we have which is the biggest city that that i represent approximately two hundred thirty two hundred forty thousand people they had a desire to replace some of the oldest schools in my congressional district and in trying to put together a package to replace those older schools they then had to cover everybody in town came up with a package that led a a part time teacher to put together a referendum campaign basically it was a referendum of the petition campaign because the only way to block a bond in a d'anna is to have a majority of people a majority of people signed a petition against the bond and that in spite of the support of both major newspapers insiders the board of all the p d a f all the band parents all the sports parents all that the pretty much elected officials eighty percent roughly of the people signed a bond against the school bonds now presumably they're going to come back at some point with a more reasonable proposal to deal with the schools that actually need physical repair in bad shape i mean all you can use physical repair but that if that were in the package but it's not clear right now that they get anything through that led to a state legislative proposal that now is going to force a public referendum on school bonding that we in fact have schools in low income areas and other areas where the taxpayers if they have the resources haven't chosen to spend the money and then look to the federal government that's in deep debt to cover it or they don't have the resources the only possible argument i can see is a school district that has no property taxes and ability to pay for a building that is disintegrating threatens just as as title one did the ability of students to get a decent education to be able to compete but to open up the pandora's box here and in fact put it in a competition where instead of dealing with idea instead of dealing with it with english as a second language instead of trying to do math and science instead of trying to fill the gap for low income we open up school construction i don't see where it ends  studies have shown the davis bacon can add twenty percent to the cost of construction projects the national center for education statistics estimates estimated that the need for new construction and renovation in our nation's schools one hundred twelve billion dollars i simply don't think we can justify adding billions to that already staggering price tag the fact is every federal dollar we spend on inflated construction costs is a dollar we cannot spend on helping disadvantaged children learn to read or do math or get the extra help they need to achieve on par with their more advantaged peers part of the increased cost of davis bacon is due to flaws in the wage data gathering these flaws were highlighted in a two thousand and four report from the department of labor's own independent inspector general which found the davis bacon wages may be either over or under the actual market rate that means in some part of the country davis bacon will inflate wages while in other areas it will actually short change workers the associated builders and contractors the independent contractors and national school boards association provided a letter for the record for the school construction hearing in it they have a simple request we urge you to refrain from imposing costly davis bacon act requirements on school and construction projects until serious flaws with that law's wage determination process are fixed i ask that this letter be inserted into the record without objection at this time the department of labor has not fixed the flaws in the wage data catherine process hear mr mccann talk about the wage determination process but in every other discussion that i have participated in with respect to davis bacon in this congress whether it is in this committee or whether it is in the transportation committee and it is really a discussion about davis bacon is really a surrogate for a discussion about whether or not we want to support the union movement in this country i fall on the side of wanting to support the union movement in this country in my view it is the union movement in this country that has built the middle class and one of the reasons the middle class is struggling as it is is because so few of our workers are now unionized that's a debate we've had in this committee in another form but i would i would remind my colleagues that when our colleagues on the other side of the aisle were in the majority they did not hesitate to to see to it that the very wealthy received enormous tax breaks they did not hesitate to provide subsidies for big oil and to this day they continue to protect taxpayer funded subsidies for big oil they did not hesitate to provide subsidies for the insurance company they did not hesitate to protect the for the primary part of the financial interests of pharmaceutical companies this is an effort to protect the financial interests of the working families in this country and i would urge my pair of my my colleagues to support the language as originally written and vote in opposition to this amendment i yield back the balance of my time and i'd be happy to as you as you mentioned what my concern was with the way these wages are determined and i said in my statement that there would be some there in some instances lower would be required some wages higher wages would be required and i might mention as long as we got into big  oil about two years ago speaker pelosi said if the democrats were put in charge that they had a plan to lower gas prices and since then gas prices have gone up over a dollar twenty per gallon we're still waiting for that plan back thank you for yielding back let me suggest that you also described the davis bacon requirements as quote costly i think you did that two or three times in your statement they are in fact costly  rationale they would be costly because of what we would be paying the workers so i would believe that there may be some isolated cases in which prevailing wage would be a wage that would be a depressed wage but i believe in your construct you would see prevailing wages a wage that would be more expensive to local school districts as opposed to less expensive gel no well not just yet there's no other reason to describe the davis bacon requirements as costly if the workers would be paid less than they would under normal circumstances with respect to gasoline prices this is not the debate we should be having but to hold democrats who have been responsible for one chamber for eighteen coming up we know exactly what the words are going to be and when we're imposing prevailing wage we know what it's going to be so i'm going with twelve right now you'll back all right i'll take thirteen see alternatives for the credit question when you that my friend the reason we don't just use those is it gives us a chance to bring up other things like the promise from speaker pelosi that two years ago she said if you won the election you would lower gas prices and they've doubled since and so we cherish these opportunities to lengthen the debate if need be because all of america would like to see you complete that promise and deliver that plan so that we could bring it to the floor and vote on it and lower our gas prices are going to do that and we know we just never anticipated that the bush administration would so weaken the dollar that the wall street journal editorial page not my favorite page in the world tells us that that weak dollar that has been undermined by the by the bush administration has driven to over see sometimes unintended consequences and that is why we're paying double now we just didn't we didn't do we would we didn't anticipate the incompetence of the bush administration in managing the economy you know we thought there'd be some modicum of that's all i appreciate it thank you very much thank you an amendment offered by mr castle of delaware and the general is recognized for five minutes to explain his amendment because chairman in february i testified before the full committee at a hearing examining modern public school facilities during that hearing we also explore the possibility of implementing a puddle school construction program in my testimony i expressed my strong belief that as congress works to revive our nation's students with the best possible education provide them with the tools to succeed it is important to scrutinize whether the federal government can commit to providing yet another funding stream for a federal school construction program especially when funding needs for federally mandated programs such as title one and i d e a are not currently being met today the committee is considering h r thirty twenty one the twenty first century high performing public school facilities act although well intentioned they knew kate earlier i continue to have strong concerns with financing school construction at the federal level the starkly the photograph has had an almost nonexistent role in financing school construction  brother the responsibility for school construction with the state and local levels which is then over one hundred forty five billion dollars in just the last seven years according to construction industry reports it is also important understand the cost implications of federal funding for school construction both united states part of education and the united states government accountability office or g a o have attempted to project the needs and cost of construction on the state and local levels according to a u s u s department of education's national center for education statistics report the unmet need for school construction renovation is estimated at one hundred and twelve billion dollars at the federal government gets involved in school construction projects i am fearful that the number of projects will increase and as a result the need for funding will continue to grow federal involvement would also undermine the authority and decision making ability of state and local officials who are in a better position to tailor programs to more closely meet their student unique needs and priorities our decisions must be based on existing commitments in greatest need such as assisting local assisting school districts and schools and meeting federally imposed mandates including funding for title one in fully funding the individuals with disabilities education act currently these programs are not adequately funded despite repeated congressional assurances this amendment begins to address the many concerns i have surrounding bill by requiring the title one program for low income students and id a to be fully funded before creating a new federal school construction program under no child left behind congress authorized twenty five billion dollars for the title one program t provides financial assistance to local educational agencies and schools will high numbers or high percentages of poor children to help ensure that all children be challenging state academic standards last year congress provided fourteen point three billion dollars for the title one program more than ten billion dollars below the authorized funding level additionally under the individuals with disabilities education act congress promised states and local school districts that would provide forty percent of the excess cost of educating children with disabilities to ensure they receive a free  propre public education last year congress divided ten point nine billion dollars ten point nine billion dollars for ideas although appropriations for idea grants to states have increased significantly over the last decade and for that i think we can be thankful of work done in congress funding still fall short of the amount that would be necessary to provide maximum grants all states some estimates conclude that appropriate amounts only account for seventeen point two percent of excess cost from my perspective voting in support of this amendment ensure that congress keeps making progress toward making the funding goals for both the title one program for low income students and the id a program for children with disabilities we have an obligation at the federal level to provide the funding to the programs which directly improve student achievement and close the achievement gaps that are persisted for decades between disadvantage students and their more fluent peers certainly i recognize the challenge of fully funding these programs although republicans made tremendous progress and we were in the majority providing a stark increases for these programs neither party has yet been able to reach a lofty funding goals we have set forth the purpose of my meme is not to point fingers about these funding shortfalls it's simply to prevent us from erecting further barriers to reaching our goals congress in this committee must set our nation's priorities and keep our promise to low income students and students with disabilities i encourage my colleagues to support my members and i yield back the balance my time as chairman generally yield back the balance of this time the chair  vision for for healthy schools in this country limited by what this administration this congress has or has not done in the past but certainly you know without this legislation the funding wasn't provided for no child left behind the funding was provided for for i d e a and you know at a time when we had the broadest possible coalition that i had seen here in many years when we were doing no child left behind and full funding of idea was put on the table it was taken right off the table we had every so almost every school district i think in the country and every education organization and we had three hundred seventy five members or something they were all part of that coalition for full funding and that was rapid the change in that in that legislation but the fact of the matter is this is this is this is a national need to improve the schools to improve the educational setting for our students we know there's a link between  safe decent place to go to school i would say first class place to go to school and the and the learning of students in the achievement of students and it is our task as a great nation to work on all of these fr and i believe we should be fully funding or certainly lay out a schedule for full funding of idea you know it was it was interesting that the first money that was put in no child left behind for schools in need of improvement showed up last year first time after five later after the promise was made and we knew the schools were going to go into reconstitution and other other programs to try and turn them around but the money never came in spite of the promises from the administration so we're go continue to work away on all of these fronts we've got it we've we've got to help students with with disabilities we've got to help students who are who are struggling in our schools we've got to help provide the professional development and training for teachers and we've also got to provide them a decent modern workplace people are appalled and i don't understand how some communities accept as long as they have some of the facilities that we require students and if you visit schools and you talk to students they know exactly what you were putting on their education when they walk into that building every morning in so many communities across this country this is an effort to have the federal government become a partner will amendment seems unconscionable to me that we have gone for these many years with the unfunded mandate and there is no question that idea is an unfunded mandate sitting there and even though i think many of us may be in a and while we all like to see new school buildings i'm sure that would help in some districts and not in others but if we made our commitment and i underscore the word commitment to special education funding funding will help every school district in the nation i eliminate although i think i don't agree with the program but remember we're not trying eliminate the possibility of school construction funds we're just saying that title one in id a need to be placed first and i will i will say that i think this congress has actually done a pretty good job an idea in the last ten years both republicans and democrats and we have built it up much higher than it was before but we're still far behind our commitment in title one support and other aspects of no child left behind are important to me that's the that's the federal commitment in the federal party and we haven't met that and this memo just basically says when we made our authorization requests in those areas and then we could go into this program  i think is vitally important to understand that we're we're just trying to to meet the level obligations that i think we have such as a congress but unfortunately for whatever reasons have not lived up to he legislation which is to increase funding for schools we are at i think six sixteen point eight to seventeen percent right now full funding is forty percent that's a very daunting number that will take us years to build back to after years of never coming close were a lot long way irrespective of how laudable our intent might be the second thing i would say is i think it sets up a false choice i think it says that we cannot help local schools improve the environment in which education takes place in till we have fully funded other elements of federal policy mr castle commented  that we need to provide for the needs of low income students first before we get involved in school construction i don't know the statistics but i believe it's reasonable to assume that the vast majority of communities that need assistance in the capital elements of construction of school instruction are in low income communities most affluent communities have reasonably good facilities most low income communities have very poor facilities and we know that there's a very high correlation between the the the nature of the facility in which the instruction is taking place and how effective that instruction is we know that there's a correlation between teachers leaving the profession and working in under under or apartment in facilities that are not properly constructed not properly maintained one of the things we've talked about in this committee extensively is keeping good people in an honorable profession here's an opportunity to do that we've talked extensively about the dropout rate here's an opportunity to positively effect that we've talked extensively about the correlation between low income families and poor performance here's an opportunity to address that so a labor age appropriations bill last year that increased the president's budget or an increase funding for education over the president's budget by seven billion dollars passed the house president vetoed it we fell assistance in rural areas that think it's a question and the money going to the states is driven by title one or the money the state will then send out so in some searches situations money when they gave in some disproportionate way to different may be talking about the chandler bill as opposed to the substance before us you talked about certain components having a matching fund contribution that is no longer in the bill in the substitute there are pros and the answer is yes the prohibitions on athletic facilities exhibitions where events are charged commission is that is the prohibition prohibition against a school using this for an auditorium or stage is still in the bill is that correct and that's my understanding that's correct sad all right and the one percent cap the one could go to a district for their for their funding purposes here is where i have a problem with this particular bill and i apologize for using this on mr cassels amendment but it does talk about distribution of funds in the state of utah we equalize revenue that goes to the district now by simply doing that property taxes the basic driving force and we have established a level for both maintenance and operation which is program and capital outlay which is building construction that kept if a district goes above that cap from their property taxes the from the rich districts it will be taken recaptured and given to the poor districts title one has no impact on that in those particular districts simply because if it's dealing with the program out there is no district that ever gets the recapture portion so everything mixes  it's part of the the part of equalization when it comes to capital outlay which does the construction it is entirely different issue utah also constitutionally equalizes that fund and we do have districts that go maximum and have a recapture if this money is now given to the state which will then give it disproportionately to districts that have title one still children all of a sudden what you have done is totally screw up the equalization formula for capital outlay which either means the district with a title one may indeed have more which exceeds that and a district that does not have that will have to be paying more into that district disproportionately because you have you have screwed up the equalization process it's also feasible and i  realize my time is up and i have just the consent to continue on for a few minutes and i want i want to be using i hope the the also process that goes on with that is that some of the title one schools may indeed come from areas that have a very high t think that little colloquy that we just heard in that explanation wouldn't fit into the twelve b or the thirteen c and and it goes to the point that i made in my opening statement that rushing this process not having adequate hearings not having a subcommittee markup which would have given a chance to bring this out and take care of this and i don't know when we're slated for markup but if it's if we're following the pattern of the last month or so is probably going to be on the floor next week and i don't know that we will have time to adequately address that problem and so we rush to to a major policy with inadequate information which ultimately leads to serious problems down the road let me just address something that came up a little bit earlier about i d e a and goes back to this amendment mr castle i know we we lowly republicans have been persecuted heavily for not funding and title one over the last several years when we were in the majority but just to revise history or correct history the way it actually should be written in one thousand nine hundred five when i was passed two billion dollars would have adequately funded the forty percent when we won the majority in ninety four all of those years that the democrats have been in charge they had gotten the funding up to one billion one hundred fifty two million ok very adequately plan that was running at about six to seven percent rather than forty percent since that time we have increased it greatly every year from about six percent up to when we lost the majority up to about seventeen point seven percent and the dollar went from a little over one billion to just short of eleven billion so is that enough no but i think the record should adequately correctly reflect what was done from ninety four from sixty five to ninety two and then what was done from two thousand and two to two thousand and six i mean we can talk about this all day but i think we would agree that that we still need to do a better job of funding i d e a and title one and i think the gentleman's a member addresses that situation i thank him for it and i strongly urge our committee to support the  amendment offered by mr bishop of utah and the gentleman is recognized to explain his amendment was was being handed out to the members thank you one of the other concerns that i had and once again it in the original draft of subtitle a it did talk about one of the criteria that would be used by the secretary what chandor stand is no longer there would be the extent to which l a s charter schools have access to funding for projects or the financing methods and it triggered i think with staff as well as myself the concept that we want to make sure the public charter schools elementary and secondary are eligible for these awards and they are not in a discriminatory basis to be very honest with you total funding to a charter school which is still a public greater flexibility that has to meet the needs of the of the district or the l e a under which it is chartered has a bay at roughly twenty two percent nationwide lower funding fewer dollars going into that than a regular school having that same area if it's in an urban area that the figure is about twenty four percent the concern i have once again is that charter schools have the same needs the same criteria if indeed we are going to go down this path that charter schools should be treated in the same basis with the same pattern without any element of discrimination against them than a regular school would be within that entirely a and that that should probably be spelled out in the bill where the criteria for distribution is as we've already talked about then on line fifteen says includes any public charter school that constitutes the constitutes a local education agency under state under state law i think we've taken care of this i'll be glad to look at the amount not going to accept it but i'd be glad to look at it but it's certainly my intent  that they that they would stand in line like it like everyone else in this funding in the public charter schools which stand in that and that's why i appreciate your raising amendment if it turns out that this language does not is not adequate i'd be happy to work with the gentleman but for school construction renovation was estimated be about one hundred twelve billion dollars in our nation more than three quarters of the nation's schools need funding to bring facilities into what was described or is described as quote good overall condition however this report is based on self reported data on school conditions not data that comes from a neutral or outside opinion by this very fact it's possible that the problems are overestimated in the very least the assessments are subjective and the criteria may vary and certainly vary from one school to the next this certainly begs the question could it be that this committee is about to authorize money for a problem that it is not clearly or fairly defined but the report cited and many others with similar methodology has served as the impetus for the legislation that we see before us today as a result our committee is here debating a new massive federal spending proposal which commits which would commit at least six point four billion dollars in school construction this is an enormous fiscal commitment a financial commitment by the federal government read the american taxpayer in matters that have been exclusively the domain of state and local governments to date as it is set up the money will be distributed to any title one school without regard to additional criteria or the actual condition of the school facility there's no attempt interject any merit or competing way compete needs are for limited federal resources consequently my amendment attempts to bring a little bit of accountability and merit to this funding process it states that an eligible local educational agency must conduct an independent audit substantiating the condition of the school facilities and the need for improvements before receiving a grand and that the audit must be certified by the state common sense certainly the self reported data that has been accumulated should serve as the first step in examining the problem but it doesn't mean that that i fair representation of the problem and should serve hopefully as the launching pad for a massive new federal spending program to every title one school that as the chairman has admitted himself is quote by formula unquote rather than just opening up the taxpayers wallet doesn't it make more sense to use discretion and judgment before a school receives a grant this committee knows this is already happening at the state level nearly every state has a in place programs to help local school districts to cover the costs of school construction for example in my state of georgia the office of finance and business operations for the facilities services program assists local school systems in developing long range capital improvement plans and acquiring the funds needed to implement their plans but to participate in georgia's capital outlay program all school systems have to develop and maintain a long range comprehensive facilities plan that's updated every five years this committee is not asking for an oda of accountability or planning or needs based assessment so i would suggest mr chairman that instead of blindly handing out federal harder and taxpayer dollars it would make sense that we take a step and evaluate which school facilities public school facilities are most in need  could we ought to begin by asking for these audits that substantiate the overall condition and the needs and that they are certified i think it's a commonsense amendment did to kind of gets to the heart of what many of us talk about when we're back home and that is that we ought to make certain that we prioritize appropriately and legitimize the spending of every single federal taxpayer dollar i would urge the adoption amendment and yield back jimmy yield back the balance of this time chair is recognized in opposition to th guess we would in effect if the money if the money is authorized by the by the federal government it would mandate a what could be a very costly audit that sort of runs counter to what school districts do in the every day administration of their of their dollars i don't state that in florida you have to go through this process in california any any major reconstruction or repair or modernization of a school is put to the  voters certainly put to a vote of the school board if it involves that kind of money in california it would be done through a bond issue the voters would have to vote sixty percent of the voters would have to vote for that is sort of the best of democracy the best of local control to now come along and to tell them that they may have these studies aren't aren't necessarily inexpensive that a school district would have to spend tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of dollars reviewing their plan which has already been discussed on a local basis voted on an open and open school board meetings and in many instances voted on a bond issue to me is sort of you know i hear a lot of railing sometimes about mandates on this one i think that's why this legislation has won the support of school boards of superintendents of districts of state agencies because they recognize this is a very efficient way to get money to the they think it's a fair way to get money to the that those districts already engaged in a process of setting forth their their priorities well jameel leave that this would be set substantial money that the decision think of somehow they want to get around that system but it just doesn't work that that schools have already demonstrated through some either a local bond or something that they know what i'm saying is i don't again i don't want to speak for all fifty states but i'm just saying that if you use that how it happened how school districts arrive at these decisions and priorities in georgia and i'm saying that in california they go essentially through the same process they put forth the capital plan if they want to if they if it's large enough that they think they're going to need a bond issue to do that they have to submit that to the voters and the school boards  you know are open media sometimes to go for hours and hours discussing the priorities of the school district with respect to spending and this is incorporated in that process this money would be applied to the priorities that are arrived at by the school board that's sort of the division of authority in this and in our current system of public education in my family i'm sure and in mine correct though in my reading of the bail it appears to me that a title have most of us here in congress on both sides of the aisle have said that we wanted to be better stewards of that money some of us have said that one of the ways to do that is to make certain that that we don't continue down the path of destructive earmarks which i believe are have corrupted the system and i think there's ample evidence for that and so this is this amendment is simply an attempt to say with this money from here forward this committee to work diligently on this kind of legislation to work to try to make certain that we're improving schools back in in our districts and across our state and then come to find out that some of the the monies are forbid that we should allow that to continue so i would i would hope that that the committee would see the logic in the common sense of this amendment i had the privilege couple weeks ago of standing up with the citizens against government waste a group that year and and amazingly they do come through in every single area of spending here in washington education is no is not protected from wasteful spending and from directing money toward favored groups or paying paying off political friends and punishing political enemies so this i think is a mammoth gets to the core in the heart of what our constituents are talking about i know and that is in some some wasteful spending and to make certain that it is spent responsibly and then went before was to try to create an audit and make certain that the projects that were cirie saving those funds actually needed those funds  amendment is an attempt to try to make certain that that failing that amendment which wasn't supported by my friends on the other side that failing that that we make certain that in money doesn't go to two political friends or cronies so i would hope  that we would adopt this amendment and be pleased to have the support of my colleagues and yield back the balance of my time i think the gentleman and chairs recognized for five minutes in opposition to this amendment i don't think this amendment is  necessary it's why we have constructed this on a formula basis so that this money would go forth on a formula basis this is not a pot of money to be designated by the secretary or somebody else that can then be invaded this is this is money when it went appropriated goes on a formula basis i would have thought that marching mr cunningham off to jail would have caused members to rethink what they're doing with their earmar s but if that hasn't dismember it won't stop them so i don't think this is necessary if it was if it was a designated fund money to be handed out on a discretionary basis then i would i would agree with the gentleman but i think i think the the formula provides for that for that protection that earmarks would in fact be contrary to the to the law that this  time when schools might find it useful because in virtually every case when you're dealing with something that's a non manufacturing and building put it simply a school building you can get far more carbon reduction by improvements to the building or to end solution than you could possibly get and carbon offsets for that same amount of money so it's simply a matter of achieving the savings that we want  energy efficiency we want but doing it in the most efficient way possible and i would hate to see the school buildings or the programs using federal funds to purchase carbon offsets when there are so many more things know is what else it might open this bill up to in terms of other remember it's my first impression is probably not because i want to see the gentleman i absolutely agree with the intent to this part of  assure that students and teachers have the same rights that we enjoy in congress to voluntarily join together unspoken prayer without fear of violating the law the founding fathers not only set out this right but also for its very existence over the years we've heard numerous stories about students who are disciplined for praying in public schools from prayer before eating lunch to praying before football games it's for this reason to the language surrounding school prayer was but in the  protect the constitutional right to freely practice one's religion i believe that the right to voluntary prayer is vital to the future of our children and this nation this amendment how a poll that right and with that i yield back the gentleman yells appeal the ruling of the chair the gentleman the gentleman from tennessee appeals the ruling of the chair all those in favor of appealing the ruling of the chair will say i those opposed no in the opinion that year than those have it and those ha a notice to the members of the committee that we would begin the roll call votes at about one thirty so we will hold off here for a bit to see if we can get a  critical mass in the committee thank  you the committee will reconvene for the purposes of the of the roll calls that have been requested the first the first roll call will be on the making an amendment mr castle mr platts mr platts votes i mr keller mr keller votes i mr wilson mr mr marchant mr marchant votes by mr price mr price votes i mr fortune you know mr bishop of utah mr davis of tennessee mr davis of tennessee votes mr walberg mr walberg votes i was just now i recorded mr tierney is not recorded mr tierney votes no i was mr scott recorded mr scott is not recorded mr scott votes no history in the house of mystery no houses not recorded mr sarbanes is not recorded mr sarbanes votes no mr holt mr holt votes no mrs davis mrs davis votes no mr davis of illinois mr davis of illinois votes no mr green how about mr bishop of new york boats i miss is bigger mrs biggert votes i mr platts mr platts votes i mr keller mr keller votes i mr wilson mr wilson davis votes no mr davis of illinois mr davis of illinois votes no mr mr bishop of new york no mr kildee mr kildee votes no mr payne mr payne votes no mr anders mr scott mr scott votes no woolsey votes no mystery in the house of mystery in the house votes no mrs mccarthy mrs mccarthy votes no mr tierney mr tierney votes no mr percentage mr bishop of utah mr davis of tennessee mr davis of tennessee votes i am mr walberg mr walberg votes i no chairman miller votes no mr kildee no mr kildee votes no mr paine mr paine votes no mr andrews mr scott castle votes no mr souter mr souter votes no mr mr taylor's votes no mrs bigger mrs biggert votes no mr platts mr platts votes mr keller mr klein mr kline votes no mrs mcmorris rodgers mrs mcmorris rogers votes now mr marchant mr marchant votes no mr price mr price votes no mr fortun utah votes no mr davis of tennessee mr davis of tennessee votes no mr walberg mr walberg votes no that that all members have the requisite number of days to file additional minority views on the bill reported today and if their hearing no objection so ordered and the committee will stand