[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 6 (Wednesday, January 16, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H263-H264]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 REAUTHORIZATION OF THE HOPE VI PROGRAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, last month at a hearing of the Subcommittee 
on Energy and Water of the Appropriations Committee we heard expert, 
corroborated testimony that heating and cooling and the electrical 
fixtures and appliances in buildings in the industrial, commercial and 
residential sectors use nearly 50 percent of all the energy that is 
used in America today and thereby were responsible for nearly 50 
percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.
  We were also told that we could reduce by one-half the energy used in 
new or renovated buildings using present knowledge and technology.
  One month ago, because of the powerful and insistent leadership of 
Speaker  Nancy Pelosi, and the critical cooperation of Chairmen Dingell 
and Markey and a host of others from both parties, this Congress passed 
and the President signed landmark energy legislation.
  That new law focused heavily on reducing the fossil fuel used in 
transportation by raising corporate average fleet efficiency standards 
to 35 miles per gallon by the year 2020 and mandating production of 36 
billion gallons of biofuel, mostly ethanol, by the year 2020.
  But equally important were some provisions relating to buildings, 
what I have said already, which use nearly 50 percent of all the energy 
used in America today. First, the increased energy efficiency standards 
for appliances used in commercial and residential buildings; second, 
the goal that all commercial buildings built after the year 2025 would 
use zero net energy; third, that all federally constructed buildings 
would reduce their general energy usage by 30 percent by the year 2015; 
and fourth, that all new Federal buildings reduce their fossil fuel-
produced energy by 55 percent in 2010 and eliminate by 2030 all fossil 
fuel-produced energy.
  Our first opportunity to meet the spirit of this landmark energy bill 
comes in the bill before us tomorrow, the reauthorization of the Hope 
VI program.
  This reauthorization proposes a rejuvenated program at $800 million a 
year which with just Hope VI dollars alone could produce as many as 
4,000 units per year of housing, affordable housing for people with low 
income. Put in perspective, those potential affordable housing units 
represent less than 0.1 percent less than 1/1000th of the housing built 
in this country each year, and virtually all of the cost is borne by 
the Federal Government.
  The bill includes an extremely important provision that projects must 
use green community criteria to be eligible for the Federal funding. 
Numerous cities and even States already require or use compliance with 
such green community criteria.
  Washington, DC, for instance, requires the criteria for all 
residential construction, not just public construction.
  Washington State requires criteria stronger than the green community

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base criteria for all State-funded housing.
  Maine requires similar criteria for all housing built with public 
dollars in that State.
  Cities from coast to coast, such as Cleveland, Ohio, and Boston, 
Massachusetts, and Portland, Oregon, have already built Hope VI 
projects complying with the green community criteria. An assessment of 
the added costs for construction using such criteria and for some 20 
already completed projects shows an average of 2.4 percent increase in 
construction costs.
  But we build housing to last for 50 to 100 years. Such projects 
exceed savings in energy costs that are greater than the construction 
costs that is slightly higher within about 5 years, and those savings 
accrue to the low-income families using that housing over the 50- to 
100-year lifetime of the housing.
  The benefits go to the low-income families directly if the families 
pay their utility bills directly or those benefits go to the public 
housing authorities if the authority itself pays the utility bill for 
the housing unit. And those benefits are then passed on to the tenants, 
and they require less of an appropriation in operating costs by our 
government to the public housing authorities in the various cities 
around the country that use this housing.
  We should not lose this opportunity to meet the spirit of the energy 
bill, the new energy law, that landmark legislation which we have all 
touted and so strongly supported. We should use the best green criteria 
available to promote healthier homes for low-income families and save 
all of that energy over the long haul.

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