[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 128 (Wednesday, July 21, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H3792-H3796]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   GREEN NEW DEAL FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bowman) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. BOWMAN. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include 
extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from New York?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. BOWMAN. Madam Speaker, this afternoon, we are focused on the 
Green New Deal. And I want to be very clear about why we need a Green 
New Deal. Our fossil fuel-driven economy is making us sick and 
literally killing us. But with historic investments in green 
infrastructure and the care economy, we can do the opposite. We can 
repair the damage done and give every person what they need to 
flourish.
  In the Pacific Northwest, we just saw a brutal heat wave that took 
the lives of 116 people in Oregon, 112 people in Washington, and 
hundreds more in British Columbia.

[[Page H3793]]

  We saw catastrophic floods across Europe that killed nearly 200 
people, and record-shattering rains that caused deaths in India and 
China. We are living with wildfires that destroy communities and 
suffocate us with smoke. Africa is being battered by drought, and 
Siberia is in flames. We literally saw the ocean on fire.
  We now live in a world in which extreme weather driven by climate 
change is killing 5 million people per year. And in parts of my 
district, you are three times more likely to die from asthma than 
anywhere else in the country. We need to be crystal clear about the 
fact that our economic system created this emergency, while our 
political system subsidizes and protects the fossil fuel industry. That 
has to change now.
  The Green New Deal provides the framework we need to rebuild our 
economy, society, and democracy from the ground up. The Green New Deal 
recognizes that climate change, public health, systemic racism, and 
economic inequality are all deeply connected. And as you will hear 
tonight, it gives us a road map for tackling these crises together in a 
holistic manner.
  As a lifelong educator, I see the perfect place to kickstart this 
process, our K-12 public schools.
  Think about it, there is no single institution that touches the lives 
of more people. We are talking about 50 million young people, plus 
parents, teachers, staff, workers, and neighbors. Our schools are the 
heartbeat of our communities, and they must become the epicenter of 
transformative climate change.
  For decades, we have allowed these precious places to be neglected, 
particularly in redlined parts of the country. We are leaving Black and 
Brown students and low-income students behind. We over-test the 
academic ability of our children, but we do not support and engage them 
as human beings.
  And on a physical level, our schools have fallen into a state of 
disrepair. In my 20 years as a teacher and principal, I saw this every 
single day. We have schools with no running hot water or drinking 
fountains that do not work. Schools where the drinking fountains that 
do work are poisoning our children with lead.
  We have schools that are infested with asbestos, mold, and rodents, 
and that lack proper ventilation. So every day our children face a 
whole spectrum of urgent health harms. And even as young people march 
and organize relentlessly for climate action, schools are failing to 
protect them from climate impacts, like extreme heat. Outdated, 
inefficient HVAC systems are contributing to carbon pollution and 
burdening schools with $8 billion in annual energy costs.

  Last week, I introduced a bill called the Green New Deal for Public 
Schools. This is a $1.43 trillion investment over 10 years designed to 
fundamentally transform our public education system for the 21st 
century. It will create and support more than 1 million green jobs 
every year, and it centers the most precious resource in any healthy 
democracy, our children.
  With this legislation, we are going to upgrade and retrofit every 
single public school in the country, beginning in the poorest and most 
vulnerable districts. Every school will become a safe, healthy, 
accessible, and zero-carbon center of the community.
  We will remove toxic materials, electrify school facilities, and make 
them energy-efficient, comfortable, and disaster-proof. We will install 
solar panels and batteries so that every school generates and controls 
its own renewable energy. We will create community gardens and green 
spaces, and offer healthy food options to nourish our children, and so 
much more.
  These investments will be game-changing for schools in a variety of 
ways. They could see their energy bills roughly cut in half and 
reinvest the money that they save in the mental and behavioral health 
resources that our children and families need.
  In fact, this bill provides comprehensive funding for healing the 
trauma of our communities. It will allow schools to hire hundreds of 
thousands more educators, mental health professionals, school 
counselors, and other support staff, especially from the local 
community. It also provides significant resources for school districts 
to form strong community partnerships and develop curricula that are 
responsive to unique local needs.
  The legislation tackles school inequality at the regional level by 
quadrupling Title I funding. And it greatly increases IDEA funding for 
students with disabilities. This is about care; caring for ourselves, 
each other, our families, our communities, and the planet. That is what 
the Green New Deal is all about.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to my other colleagues who will highlight the 
many other ways the Green New Deal framework addresses our Nation's 
urgent needs.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Carolyn B. 
Maloney), the chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform.
  Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend 
and colleague, Congressman Jamaal Bowman, and the Congressional 
Progressive Caucus for bringing us together today to highlight the 
importance of the Green New Deal.
  Madam Speaker, climate change is one of the single most pressing 
threats facing this country and the global community, and our most 
vulnerable communities are bearing the brunt of the consequences. That 
is why today, as chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, 
I held a hearing on President Biden's Justice40 Initiative.
  During this hearing, we heard from experts about the need to swiftly 
and effectively implement this initiative to ensure that the 
communities hardest hit by pollution, poverty, and public health risks 
receive a fair share of our Nation's climate and infrastructure 
investments.

                              {time}  1545

  As chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, I am committed 
to ensuring that the administration and all Federal agencies have the 
tools they need to implement the Justice40 Initiative. This is crucial 
to ensuring that our climate investments advance racial and economic 
justice.
  Beyond the Justice40 Initiative, we need to prioritize policy 
solutions here in Congress that really focus on climate justice. For 
New York City, that means investing in a green future for public 
housing and for our public schools.
  This past Earth Day, I reintroduced the Public Housing Solar Equity 
Act, which would guarantee that any solar energy generated on public 
housing land benefits the residents of those developments first.
  Looking beyond solar energy, all public housing repairs and 
modernization projects should be green, which is exactly what the Green 
New Deal for Public Housing does. This bill will provide funding to 
electrify all buildings, add solar panels, and secure renewable energy 
sources for all public housing energy needs. In short, it will make 
Federal housing cleaner, safer, and greener.
  Housing is a human right that no New Yorker, no American, should go 
without. As we work to make sure everyone has access to the clean 
affordable housing they need and deserve, let's expand our goals to 
make these communities green, too.
  For the health of our residents and for our environment, we cannot 
afford to do anything less.
  For the health of our students, we need a Green New Deal for Public 
Schools, a transformative and unprecedented investment that will not 
only make our schools greener but also expand services for our 
students. My colleague, Jamaal Bowman, is a former educator and has 
authored this important bill, of which I am a cosponsor.
  We are in a state of emergency. The West is burning; cities are 
flooding; and extreme weather events are becoming all too common. We 
need to act now, and we need to act boldly.
  For the health and safety of all Americans, for environmental and 
social justice, let's make a Green New Deal. We can't afford to do 
anything less.
  Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from New York (Mr. Bowman) for 
focusing on education and our environment and putting both of them 
together creatively with the Green New Deal for Public Schools.
  Mr. BOWMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York 
(Ms. Ocasio-Cortez), who is the original Green New Deal champion in

[[Page H3794]]

Congress and who has done so much in collaboration with social 
movements to inject this vision into the consciousness of America. Her 
Green New Deal for Public Housing was a major inspiration for my 
schools legislation.
  Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Madam Speaker, it is such an honor to be here just 
over 2 years after we introduced the original Green New Deal 
resolution, which has now inspired a great deal of similar resolutions 
and Green New Deal resolutions adopted and introduced into 
municipalities and States across the country.
  Not only have similar resolutions been introduced, but we also have 
seen inspiration for other forms of Green New Deal legislation, like 
the Green New Deal for Public Housing, the Green New Deal for Public 
Schools, and beyond.
  But I think one thing that is very important for us to discuss is a 
very urgent matter, which is the infrastructure package that is right 
here before Congress that is being negotiated by both the House and the 
Senate.
  While I certainly wish sometimes that our legislation was informed 
primarily by the legislators that are here writing this legislation, by 
communities that are impacted by this legislation, it goes without 
saying that there is a great deal of dark money involved in the fight 
on climate change, and that dark money is intended for us to not act in 
this situation.
  We have lobbyists from companies like ExxonMobil bragging about their 
role in shaping our Federal legislation and curtailing our ambitions 
and in fighting against key provisions to draw down our carbon 
emissions.
  Whenever I see something like this, whenever I see how dark money and 
lobbyists act as a wedge and a cudgel between elected officials and 
public servants and the people that we are supposed to represent, not 
only do I think it is heartbreaking, but it is very much tragic.
  There is a key issue that we have here in acting on climate, and the 
big part of that issue is something that we call kind of a principal-
agent problem where the people in charge of making decisions are simply 
not aligned and not incentivized to make the right ones because they 
are not feeling the impact of it.
  I get concerned when we have conversations that the politics of the 
day get involved and intercede, and they complicate the policy for a 
generation. It is so critically important because I can't help but 
imagine that so many of the people that are in charge of blocking 
action on climate will not see the world that they are leaving to 
generations to come.
  We have a moral responsibility to leave this world better than we 
found it. This is not about theory anymore. This is not about 
challenging the science anymore.
  In New York City just yesterday, people woke up having a harder time 
breathing and having a harder time seeing the horizon because of the 
smoke from the Bootleg fires out in Oregon coming out to our city.
  Wildfires will come and impact all of us. Floods and waters will come 
to impact all of us. But they will not impact all of us equally. The 
most vulnerable communities will be left behind, and we can stop it.
  It doesn't have to be this way. Not only can we stop it, and not only 
can we draw down our emissions, but we can create millions of jobs 
doing so--millions of good union jobs.
  We can create a civilian climate corps. We can transition to 
renewable energy. We can build infrastructure that all people can enjoy 
that is not just attuned to the wealthy. We can restore our land. We 
can live in harmony with an economy where we can care for one another 
instead of extracting off of each other.

  We can build this world, and this world is close. It is so close. It 
is so close. That is why we see dark money mobilizing the way that it 
is right now, because they know that we can win.
  Hopefully, in this package, we will continue to win. But this fight 
does not stop now. It does not stop with this infrastructure package. 
It will not stop, frankly, throughout the course of our lives because 
we have a responsibility to leave this world a better place for 
ourselves and our children.
  Mr. BOWMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Takano), the chair of the Veterans' Affairs Committee.
  Mr. TAKANO. Madam Speaker, I thank Representative Bowman for 
yielding, and I fully appreciate an opportunity to be in partnership 
with a fellow teacher for the cause of climate change.
  Climate change is infrastructure. Our buildings, roads, and 
transportation are directly impacted by the impending climate crisis.
  In this 1 year, we have seen our oceans on fire; a pipeline broke in 
the Gulf of Mexico; our bridges are crumbling; our buildings are 
collapsing; wildfires and heat waves have been paired with rolling 
blackouts in my district.
  Unfortunately, my constituents and I have experienced this for 
decades without much progress, but we cannot continue to accept this as 
a reality, a continuing reality.
  In addition to losing power in my district, some of the worst air 
quality in the country exists in my district. Despite California 
leading the Nation in investing in renewable energy, we still are not 
doing enough.
  As co-chair of the Congressional Energy Storage Caucus, I know how 
critical it is for us to invest in renewable microgrids that are 
powered by solar and wind energy and backed by battery energy storage. 
Congress must provide municipalities, businesses, and residents with 
the ability to purchase and build their own energy grids that are 
resilient to our frequent natural disasters.
  We have the technology to catch up to the modern industrial world. We 
cannot afford not to use this technology. We must invest.
  Mr. BOWMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New Mexico 
(Ms. Stansbury).
  Ms. STANSBURY. Madam Speaker, I rise today with my colleagues to 
continue calling attention to the survival of our planet and our future 
generations, the well-being of our communities, and the critical 
importance of passing legislation across the board that reflects our 
values, which are embodied in the Green New Deal.
  The science is clear. We must urgently address climate change now. We 
must address our greenhouse gas footprint and the causes of climate 
change now. We must mitigate the impacts of climate change now. And we 
must support and center and empower and invest in our communities now.
  That is what the Green New Deal is all about, building a world that 
is more just, more equitable, and more climate-resilient for future 
generations, for our children, for our parents, and for everyone across 
our communities.
  To do so, we have to invest in our communities, critical 
infrastructure, and all the things that will make it possible for our 
communities to thrive. The time is now to be decisive, to be brave in 
our policymaking, to be bold in our investments, and to lean into the 
science.
  We must do so now in the budget reconciliation and infrastructure 
packages that this body is working to pass right now.
  This is especially critical for my home State of New Mexico, where we 
are already experiencing the impacts of extreme drought, catastrophic 
fires, heat waves, and an uncertain future, and where our communities 
are already struggling daily to make a living. Our families are 
struggling to put food on the table and struggling to support people 
across our community.
  It is absolutely critical that we support and center our communities 
in this conversation and that we invest in the resilient infrastructure 
that will make it possible for us to live resiliently: our electric 
grid, broadband infrastructure, drinking water, irrigation 
infrastructure, and green infrastructure, and to lean into our clean 
energy future.
  We must also invest in the infrastructure of our communities, our 
care economy, because that is the infrastructure of our economy and the 
well-being of our people, our schools, and our families.

                              {time}  1600

  We must do all of this through the lens of social, racial, and 
economic justice, investing in good paying jobs, lifting up the voices 
of and listening to the people in our communities and ensuring that 
their livelihoods and well-

[[Page H3795]]

being are at the center of these conversations.
  That is why we need bold action now in the budget, in reconciliation, 
and in the infrastructure package to ensure that we are investing in 
things that are not only shovel-ready but shovel worthy and worthy of 
our communities and their future.
  The time for action is now. We need climate action now, and I am 
proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with my colleagues here in the 
House and in the Senate to ensure that we are making good on our 
commitment to our future.
  Mr. BOWMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Cardenas).
  Mr. CARDENAS. Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Bowman for reserving the 
time on the floor of the House of Representatives so that we can speak 
the truth about what too many families and too many people--mostly poor 
people--have to endure, not only in America but around the world.
  I was born and raised in the northeast San Fernando Valley, and I am 
very, very proud to say, in the Senate I have a colleague who grew up 
in Pacoima just like I did. His parents were immigrants of Mexico, and 
so were mine. We went to the same elementary school and the same high 
school, but yet at the same time we ended up being on the city council 
together for some years, he as a council president and I as a new 
member.
  He said to me: Tony, what committee do you want to chair?
  I said: I want to chair the committee that oversees the airport, the 
ports and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
  At that time the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was the 
largest water and power district in America.
  Why did I want to be on those committees?
  Because those three entities are spewing more into our atmosphere 
than any other organizations in Los Angeles. It gave me the opportunity 
to live my values, to be able to grow up in a poor community, yes, in 
the hood, in the northeast San Fernando Valley, on that side of town 
where there are more dumpsites in that part of L.A. County--a county of 
10 million people--but they have concentrated more dumpsites in my 
backyard than any other place in that county.
  For Alex Padilla, our families, and me, we had to endure that for 
generations. But here Alex is, a city council member, the president of 
the council, choosing to put me as the chairman of that committee. And 
while I was on that committee, I forced the Los Angeles Department of 
Water and Power to finally clean up their act.
  Believe it or not, the progressive Los Angeles Department of Water 
and Power belongs to the city of Los Angeles, the people of Los 
Angeles. We were fooled into believing that we are a progressive 
community and that we would not be spewing out dirty fossil fuels to 
create the electricity that we depend on every day. But we did, Madam 
Speaker.
  Approximately 60 percent of all of the energy that was being produced 
for our city and for our community was coming from fossil fuels. Under 
the presidency of President Alex Padilla,--who is now our United States 
Senator from California--he gave me the mantle of being the chairman of 
that committee, we forced the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power 
to cut their emissions in half, to literally divest themselves of dirty 
coal plants, and to finally clean up our act.
  I am very, very proud to say that as the first council member to 
represent that community to be born and raised in Pacoima, I was the 
first council member to tell a company that owned a private dumpsite 
when they wanted to expand it again and again and again, I was the 
first council member to say: No, you are not.
  We denied them their expansion. That was the first time it had ever 
happened.
  Again, Madam Speaker, for far too long we were being represented by 
people who didn't realize or understand what it is like to grow up in a 
community where environmental injustice prevails and proliferates. We 
suffer from asthma rates that other communities don't suffer. Our 
children do. Our families do. We suffer from groundwater that is more 
contaminated than any other place in America.
  We finally brought the grants from Washington, from city hall, and 
from Sacramento, our State capital, to clean up our act and to clean up 
our groundwater.
  Those are the kinds of things that we are doing in Congress. Those 
are the kinds of things that the Green New Deal has brought to light 
where before only certain people experienced it and only certain people 
cared.
  Now, today, we are talking about something that I am very proud of. I 
am very proud to be one of the original cosponsors of the Green New 
Deal in this Congress, but equally proud, with my colleague Congressman 
Bowman, to be an original cosponsor of the Green New Deal for Public 
Schools Act. These are the kinds of investments that we need to make as 
Congress.
  Equally important, we need to make sure that we continue to remind 
every single person that we are in this together. As go our 
communities, as goes our country, and as goes the environment, so does 
the planet. Even though some billionaires are flying up into the sky 
and getting into outer space, this is our planet, Madam Speaker. We 
cannot escape it.
  Why try to escape it?
  Why not just look in the mirror and see what we all can do about it?
  That is the responsible thing to do. That is something that we can 
and should be proud of.
  So I stand here today to encourage every single one of us to help 
clean up our act and to, once again, thank my colleague, Congressman 
Bowman, for inviting me and the rest of us to speak the truth on this 
floor today about how important it is that we have a Green New Deal 
for all.

  Mr. BOWMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Missouri 
(Ms. Bush), to whom I want to wish a very happy birthday today.
  Ms. Bush is another powerful Green New Deal champion who has 
introduced a fantastic Green New Deal For Cities bill. I also had the 
pleasure of working with Ms. Bush on our public power resolution.
  Ms. BUSH. Madam Speaker, St. Louis and I rise today because the Green 
New Deal cannot wait, and my brother, Representative Bowman, 
understands that. I thank him for pushing this, and I thank him for 
speaking up and speaking out. It is not an easy place to speak out 
from. Especially as Black Americans in this country, it is not usually 
one of the things that people think that the Black community will speak 
out about, but this is our work to speak out about it to make sure that 
our communities are made whole.
  Yes, today is my 45th birthday. Birthdays are both a time of 
celebration and a time of reflection.
  Today, there are 11 more 90-degree days per year in St. Louis than 
the year that I was born. I am thinking about that St. Louis heat, the 
heat under which Michael Brown Jr.'s body lay for more than 4\1/2\ 
hours on the hot asphalt in August of 2014.
  I am wondering how many more 90-degree days we will have when I turn 
50.
  What about when I turn 55?
  When I turn 60?
  I am wondering how many more times Black bodies will lie dead in the 
summer heat on that asphalt from the environmental injustice of police 
murder. Yes, that is an environmental injustice.
  I am thinking about how in the decade I was born the city of St. 
Louis pledged to prioritize elimination of lead pipes. But today Black 
children in the city of St. Louis are 2.4 times more likely than White 
children to test positive for lead in their blood. For my entire 
lifetime, we have been promised that this problem would be fixed. But 
today it still persists.
  I am thinking about what the world will look like when my son and my 
daughter turn 45. I am thinking about the opportunity we have right now 
to deliver them a better world. I am thinking about how blessed I am to 
be in a position to do something about it.
  Earlier this year, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and I 
introduced the Green New Deal for Cities Act to fund the environmental 
justice work of a Green New Deal in every community. Our bill would 
create good paying jobs in our communities to

[[Page H3796]]

solve the environmental racism that we face each and every day. It will 
clean up our polluted creeks and our vacant lots. Many don't know that 
when you drive in some communities, Madam Speaker, where it looks like 
the community doesn't care, sometimes it is not that the community 
doesn't care, sometimes it is because the ground is contaminated in our 
Black and in our Brown communities that those lots sit there vacant. 
Those lots sit there like they are unattended to, but there is more to 
the story, and financially that is the issue.
  When we look at cleaning up our polluted creeks and our vacant lots--
every move further we have to make sure that we replace fossil fuels 
with renewable energy.
  Why are we still having that conversation?
  I don't want my 46th birthday to come next year and our communities 
are still waiting for the people with the power of the pen and the 
people with the power of the purse to deliver the lifesaving changes 
that the people deserve. We need a Green New Deal.
  For my birthday, please join me in fighting for one everywhere.
  Mr. BOWMAN. Madam Speaker, it is amazing, whether we are talking 
about the Bronx, New York; St. Louis, Missouri; or New Mexico, it is 
obvious that a Green New Deal is needed now.
  Madam Speaker, I would like to close by returning to one particular 
aspect of the Green New Deal for Public Schools because I think it 
highlights something about the framework as a whole. For me, one of the 
most exciting parts of the Green New Deal for Public Schools is how the 
learning environment in every school will be enriched, putting our 
young people at the center of the green energy revolution.
  Students will delve into every aspect of the building retrofit 
process and immerse themselves in the broader sustainability and social 
challenges that we are tackling as a society. Each school will become a 
living lab for the Green New Deal. I cannot think of a better way to 
nurture the curiosity, ingenuity, and imaginations of our children. We 
will be kick-starting climate, STEM, and STEAM careers across the 
United States, and our country will reap the benefits of all that 
creativity.
  The Green New Deal for Public Schools and the entire Green New Deal 
framework is built on the foundation of care and healing and allowing 
everyone in this country to unlock their full potential.
  This is an idea that is expressed in Tupac Shakur's brilliant poem 
``The Rose That Grew from Concrete.''

     Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the 
           concrete?
     Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk without 
           having feet.
     Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to 
           breathe fresh air.
     Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else 
           ever cared.

  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________