Congress considers bipartisan indoor air quality legislation

The Indoor Air Quality and Healthy Schools Act, intended to provide new tools and resources to improve indoor air quality (IAQ) in buildings, was recently reintroduced in Congress.

The bipartisan legislation is aimed at providing new tools and resources to improve indoor air quality (IAQ) in buildings. The bill would strengthen the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA's) role in assessing indoor air contaminants that pose health risks.

It would also identify strategies to mitigate risks and foster education and awareness around IAQ issues generally. “Over the last few years, the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing wildfires have brought new attention to the need for safe and healthy indoor air, with concerns about airborne viral transmission and indoor particulate matter from wildfire smoke highlighting existing gaps in IAQ monitoring and management,” according to a statement by the U.S. Green Building Council. “Even outside of these more acute events, poor IAQ is a significant ongoing issue in many buildings and contributes to a range of adverse health effects. For example, many public school buildings suffer from poor ventilation and IAQ, affecting the health and performance of students and staff.”

The Indoor Air Quality and Healthy Schools Act

Provisions of the bill include:

• Establishing and regularly updating a list of indoor contaminants of concern and publishing voluntary guidelines to reduce exposure risks for these contaminants.
• Providing technical assistance and grants to state and local governments, local educational agencies, housing authorities, nonprofits, and others to develop and implement programs to assess and improve IAQ.
• Conducting a national assessment of IAQ in schools and childcare facilities, to be updated every five years.
• Identifying one or more voluntary certifications for buildings that achieve exemplary IAQ performance.
• Developing model building code provisions addressing minimum requirements for IAQ.
• Studying the feasibility of developing a science-based IAQ index aimed at clearly communicating IAQ status and level of concern and informing action.
• The bill would authorize $100,000,000 per year through 2030 for EPA to carry out the program, delivering important additional resources and having the authority to expand upon the agency’s existing work.