Claire L. Barnett, Executive Director Healthy Schools Network, Inc.

Coordinator, Coalition for Healthier Schools 

A newly enacted federal law supported by APHA and many national partners authorizes U.S. EPA, advised by CDC, to create federal guidelines and a new voluntary grant program for state agencies to advance healthy indoor environments, currently addressed by some 14 different offices and programs inside EPA. The law also authorizes EPA to produce new guidance on how states should work with federally designated and supported pediatric environmental health units.

The High Performance Green Buildings Act, signed by Bush into the Energy Act of 2007, sets forth an innovative feature recognizing children’s need for health protections. Built on special reports presented at APHA, U.S. EPA will create model guidelines for how state agencies can work with the 10 U.S.-based federally designated Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units to conduct onsite school and child care center environmental investigations. Just as challenging, the new law sets up a new federal Office of Green Buildings in the General Services Administration, and further directs EPA to set first-ever guidelines for the siting of schools, taking into account APHA Environment Section issues such as transportation modes, children’s vulnerability to toxics, and the use of schools as community emergency shelters. 

APHA Environment Section member organizations whose work informed and/or supported the new law include: Alliance for Healthy Housing, Children’s Environmental Health Network, American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Healthy Schools Network, Center for Health Environment and Justice, Institute for Children’s Environmental Health, and green building and built environment advocates. 

Detailed information about HPGB, including its text, is available here: http://healthyschools.org/documents/EnergyAct2007-HHPS_text.pdf