KY Rep's Green Schools Bill Passes House

Some Kentucky schools are participating in a program to help their buildings and surroundings go green.  Through the Green and Healthy Schools program, students, teachers, and staff agree to meet certain standards in areas such as air quality and energy use.  If a bill that’s just passed the U.S. House also clears the Senate, those and other public schools could have some help going even greener.  Kentucky Representative Ben Chandler sponsored the "21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act," which would fund renovation and modernization projects that follow environmental guidelines.“When you’ve got schools that have kids working on a program to improve their own environment and then the find out that they’re going to get help from the federal government to modernize their school in an environmentally friendly way, it goes together perfectly," says Chandler.The bill—which cleared the House on Thursday—was opposed mostly by Republicans.  They say the bill’s more than $6 billion dollar outlay for the first and several following years amounts to a spending spree.  They also say it would enable the federal government to dictate to schools.