21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act

21ST CENTURY GREEN HIGH-PERFORMING PUBLIC SCHOOL FACILITIES ACT -- (House of Representatives - June 04, 2008)

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Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to just briefly close.

Madam Chairman, there are two issues that have been debated during the course of this proposed amendment. One is what is the proper way to try to provide new supplies of oil.

There is a debate here, as Mr. McKeon has outlined it, and it has been carried on in many other bills relating to energy, about the possibility of the United States drilling and capturing more oil and natural gas here in our own territorial boundaries. The premise, of course, is if we did that, we would be able significantly to address the problem, and it also has as a premise that the obstacles to drilling are what is causing us not to drill.

In fact, that simply is not true. There are tens of millions of acres of federally owned land that are leased to the oil and gas companies, and only 28 percent of acres on shore and only 20 percent of the acres offshore where there actually are leases left are producing oil and gas. So there is an enormous capacity already that is out there for oil and gas companies to do the drilling. Why they don't, I guess we would have to ask them. But it is hard to imagine that there is a disincentive for them to take these leases that they have, giving them the opportunity to drill, when we have got oil that hovers around $130 a barrel. So the suggestion that that is the problem I think is incorrect.

Secondly, the United States, and we have got to face this, we have 2 percent of the world's oil supply. That is it. Yet we consume 24 percent of the oil. So if we think that it is going to be a long-term approach to dealing with the increasing cost of oil when we are using 24 percent and we only have 2 percent of the known reserves, I think that is going to fall on its own weight.

The second issue really is putting aside that debate about what is the long-term, shall we be drilling or not, it begs the question of whether shouldn't we be doing everything that is within our capacity right now to give tools to local communities to save money on their energy costs and don't make the policy argument about whether we should or shouldn't be drilling be an impediment to taking the concrete step that this bill proposes to give our schools the tools they need to save money.

Let me just give you a couple of examples in Vermont. We have 32 schools that have transitioned to wood biomass. These are small schools, but they have saved over 1 million gallons of home heating oil. Home heating oil now in Vermont, the last bill I paid was $4.30 a gallon. That is over $4 million. That also, as my colleague Mr. Arcuri said, is a trifecta, because it reduced carbon emissions by 11,000 tons. It also provided jobs to local Vermonters who are providing the basic material that provided the energy to these schools.

So this is an extraordinary incentive for our local schools to try to save money. That is a burden that is immense on the property taxpayers, and this is a practical piece of legislation that allows our communities and our schools to take positive steps to reduce the bottom line.

I urge, along with my colleagues who have offered this amendment, led by Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter, a ``yes'' vote on this amendment.

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