Money would help managers address deferred maintenance, sustainability and resilience in their facilities.   August 21, 2023

As managers in institutional and commercial facilities desperately seek funding to address deferred maintenance, sustainability and resilience, two pieces of proposed federal legislation aim to provide such resources to healthcare facilities and K-12 public schools.

The first proposed legislation, the Granting Resources for Eliminating Emissions Now (GREEN) in Hospitals Act, seeks to protect hospitals from extreme weather events. The proposed legislation would allocate $105 billion to update hospitals’ infrastructure to withstand increased extreme weather conditions and reduce emissions. The list of projects that could be funded with this legislation include addressing air conditioning, energy efficiency, indoor air quality, extreme heat events, wildfires, smog and pandemics.

The legislation would provide $105 billion to revive a New Deal-era program to modernize and weatherize healthcare facilities in order to reduce emissions, protect public health, and ensure that more Americans have access to health care before, during, and after climate disasters and extreme weather events.

Specifically, the legislation would invest $100 billion to fund capital projects that increase capacity to provide essential health care and update facilities to become more resilient to climate disasters and public health crises.

The second proposed legislation, the Rebuild America’s Schools Act, would improve public school infrastructure and environments to ensure school facilities are safe, healthy, sustainable and offer productive learning environments. The bill would create a federal-state partnership to provide a total of $130 billion over five years in direct grants and school construction bonds to help fill the annual gap in school facility capital needs. The act would:

• invest $100 billion in grants and $30 billion in bond authority targeted at high-poverty schools with facilities that pose health and safety risks to students and staff
• require states to develop comprehensive state-wide public databases on the condition of public-school facilities; most states do not track school facility conditions and would provide much-needed insight into the condition of our public schools
• improve broadband and Wi-Fi in public schools.

By Dan Hounsell, Senior Editor 

Dan Hounsell is senior editor of the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management. 

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