21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act (HR 2187) passed the House in May, and is awaiting action in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. This bill provides over $6 billion (the $6.4 billion stripped from the Stimulus Bill) for Green Schools (High Performance Schools).
The bill includes acoustics funds for acoustics under Indoor environmental quality “…such as day lighting in classrooms, lighting quality, indoor air quality (including with reference to reducing the incidence and effects of asthma and other respiratory illnesses, acoustics, and thermal comfort.” and the LEED rating system (which includes acoustics).
The link below can be used to get the latest available information on any official action.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR02187:@@@X
ASHA has been testifying on capital hill with other panelists including Ken Roy of Armstrong. A good article about these actions is found here: http://www.asha.org/publications/leader/archives/2009/090714/090714c.htm
On July 21st, the House Education and Labor Committee will take additional actions to address noise in the classroom in a bill titled “Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009″ (reported by ASHA). They are encouraging folks to write their congresspersons. You can find more info here – http://www.asha.org/advocacy/2009/ClassroomNoiseReductionConsidered.htm
The committee met on 7/21/09 and had their first markup session (follow this bill here http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR03221:@@@X )
The text of the bill includes ”measures designed to reduce or eliminate human exposure to classroom noise and environmental noise pollution” and the same text about indoor environmental quality. It is not clear what the difference is other than two different ways to get the funds included in case one fails, or perhaps get funds through both bills.