Celebrating September 30, 2010, as the 60th Anniversary of Impact Aid.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 1641) celebrating September 30, 2010, as the 60th Anniversary of Impact Aid.

Mr. Speaker, I request 5 legislative days during which Members may revise and extend and insert extraneous material on House Resolution 1641 into the Record.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I am the sponsor of House Resolution 1641, celebrating September 30, 2010, as the 60th anniversary of the Impact Aid program. Hawaii schools received $55.5 million in Federal Impact Aid for fiscal years 2008 and 2009, the most recent years for which data is available.

The majority of public school funding in America comes from local property taxes. Unfortunately, in school districts where the Federal Government controls part of the land, districts cannot collect revenue in local property taxes. Hawaii, for example, hosts many large U.S. military bases where thousands of our brave men and women and their families live and work. These bases do not generate property tax revenue to help educate Hawaii's military children and all of our children in Hawaii's schools. In Hawaii, as in other States, our national parks, Federal prisons, Indian lands, and low-rent public housing also decrease the property tax revenue available for schools.

Left uncorrected, our children in federally impacted areas would have less funding for education than their peers in areas with no Federal impact. This is patently unfair.

In 1950, Congress recognized the need to address this inequity and created Impact Aid, the original civil rights education law. Impact Aid reimburses the school districts for the costs of hosting Federal property and educating federally connected children.

Today, just as in 1950, we recognize the Federal obligation to support high-quality education for all children. No matter what type of land you live on, and especially if your family serves our Nation, all our children deserve a high-quality education.

Our Impact Aid community crosses all partisan and geographic divides. We have the military community, Indian land school districts, urban and rural communities, Democratic and Republican districts, districts large and

small. Today Impact Aid payments support over 11 million children in nearly 1,500 school districts.

The need for Federal Impact Aid is especially important now, as Hawaii and school districts nationwide continue to recover from the greatest recession since the 1930s. Impact Aid funds come with few strings attached and help districts support a wide range of vital services, including teacher salaries, tutoring, after-school programs, textbooks, utilities, and other local needs.

Today we celebrate Impact Aid for advancing educational equity and recognize that we still have much to do to give all our children a truly world-class education.

I reserve the balance of my time.

With that, I urge my colleagues to support the resolution and continue to support Impact Aid, which truly represents equal educational opportunities for our millions of children across our country. Happy 60th anniversary, Impact Aid.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. Speaker, since my first day in Congress, Impact Aid has always been one of my top priorities. My congressional district in the State of Washington is one of the most heavily impacted by large and vital military installations, including Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Keyport and Submarine Base Bangor, which are either in or near the Sixth Congressional District. Our region proudly hosts thousands of active duty military personnel and their families, who represent a huge economic force in the Pacific Northwest as they contribute substantially to our nation's security. In addition, Washington is also home to 27 federally recognized Native American tribes, many of which I am proud to represent in Congress.

With the many advantages of these large federal installations comes the loss of a substantial amount of land from the local tax base, however. Nevertheless, local school districts are still required to provide an education to children who live on these bases and other federally-connected, tax-exempt properties. Nationwide, this adds up to more than 1 million children, imposing more than $1 billion in additional costs to these districts. This is the reason Congress created the Impact Aid program 60 years ago.

Although the case in favor of federal Impact Aid payments is clear and compelling, it has frequently been a target for reductions as we have debated the federal budget in Congress. Over the years, cuts to Impact Aid funding have been included in the Presidential budgets submitted to Congress, and occasionally in budget Resolutions considered in the House and Senate.

To defend this vital program in the House of Representatives, I joined with a dozen of my Republican and Democratic colleagues in 1995, led by my good friends Chet Edwards and Jim Saxton, to form the House Impact Aid Coalition. Together, we have worked hard to support this program through a number of tough budget years, and I am proud that this program continues to be an important source of funding for nearly 1,500 local education agencies across the country.

At the same time we are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the creation of the Impact Aid program, we are beginning another period in which constrained federal budgets will likely threaten to erode the progress we have made, and so the work of our coalition to build support for Impact Aid will be more important than ever. I regret that the Impact Aid Coalition will be losing some of its great champions-- Chairman Edwards, Ike Skelton, Earl Pomeroy, and Patrick Kennedy--all of whom have worked hard for this cause. But in the 112th Congress I am proud that we will still have more than 100 Members who are committed to preserving this program that means so much to children of military families as well as Native American kids.

So on the occasion of this 60th anniversary of the Impact Aid Program, I join my colleagues in reflecting on the success we've had in preserving this program, and I look forward to working with my colleagues in the years ahead to strengthen it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 1641, which celebrates September 30 as the 60th anniversary of Impact Aid.

The Impact Aid program, now Title VIII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, supports local school districts with concentrations of children who reside on military bases, Indian lands, low-rent housing units, and other Federal properties.

Signed into law in 1950, the program is an invaluable resource for local school districts across the United States that have lands within their boundaries that are owned by the Federal Government or have been removed from the local tax rolls by the Federal Government. These school districts face special challenges. They must provide a quality education to the children living on the Indian and other Federal lands and meet Federal education requirements, while sometimes operating with less local revenue than is available to other school districts, because the Federal property is exempt from local property taxes.

Under the program, most Impact Aid funds are considered general aid to school districts. Most school districts use the funds to pay the salaries of teachers and teachers' aides; purchase textbooks, computers and other equipment; fund after-school programs and remedial tutoring; fund advanced placement classes and special enrichment programs. It is the only Federal program that is administered locally in order to meet the needs of students in the classroom.

In 2010, nearly $1.3 billion will be provided to 1,484 school districts, enrolling more than 1 million federally connected children-- children of our men and women in uniform, children residing on Indian lands, children in low-rent housing, and children of civilians working or living on Federal land. The funding will benefit more than 11 million students who are enrolled in these school districts.

Mr. Speaker, for the last 60 years, the Impact Aid program has played an important role in ensuring that all students have access and receive a high-quality public education. I urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 1641.

I have no requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.