Safer and Healthier Schools

Dear Friend,

I will never stop fighting to provide New Mexico’s educators and public schools with the funding, the resources, and the technical support necessary to give our kids the best possible places to learn. As part of the historic American Rescue Plan, which we passed and that President Biden signed into law last year, we delivered around $1 billion to New Mexico’s local school districts to help keep all of our state’s students, educators, and staff safe, healthy, and connected to their education.

Today, I was proud to welcome Vice President Kamala Harris’s announcement of the Biden-Harris Action Plan for Building Better School Infrastructure to modernize our public schools’ facilities and transportation with clean, healthy, and energy efficient upgrades. I was especially pleased to see an emphasis on an area that I have focused on over these past two years: improving indoor air quality in our schools by repairing and replacing heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and other air filtration and ventilation systems.

PHOTO: U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich visits Highland High School in Albuquerque to see a COVID-19 vaccine clinic and the delivery of new Ultra Violet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI) systems, January 27, 2022.

Earlier this year, I visited Highland High School in Albuquerque, which used American Rescue Plan dollars to install new Ultra Violet Germicidal Irradiation systems that use ultra violet energy to purify indoor air by killing viral, bacterial, and fungal organisms. The need for our schools to improve the quality of the indoor air that our students, teachers, and staff breathe every day goes above and beyond just the pandemic. Investing in indoor air quality improvements in our schools will have huge long-term benefits such as improved attendance due to less severe flu seasons and indoor allergies.

As part of the landmark Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, I also worked to secure major investments to improve our schools. This week, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a new $500 million grant program through the Infrastructure Law to help schools lower energy costs, improve air quality, and build new, energy-efficient buildings. The Environmental Protection Agency also released new online resources to help school districts prepare for the newly passed $5 billion Clean School Bus Program that will fund new clean and electric school buses.

As students, parents, and teachers across our state work hard through the end of this school year, I want them to know that I have their back. I will keep doing everything I can to make New Mexico schools the best places to learn and grow.

Sincerely,

MARTIN HEINRICH
United States Senator