Norton Gets Critical Funding for Metro near Stadium and Ex-Offender Treatment - 1/30/2007

Norton Gets Critical Funding for Metro near Stadium and
Ex-Offender Treatment to Prevent Recidivism
January 30, 2007

Washington, DC-Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton's (D-DC) work to preserve both major D.C. funding priorities was rewarded today in the announcement of the permanent, joint continuing resolution (CR) for FY 2007 with the inclusion of: 1) $20 million to upgrade the Navy Yard Metro Station to accommodate the new Nationals baseball stadium along with thousands of Department of Transportation and Navy Yard employees who will use the same subway station, and 2) $9 million in additional funds to treat offenders whose drug habits could otherwise lead to criminal activity. The CR forces most federal agencies to spend at FY 2006 levels, but the District's budget will include the additional local funding for D.C. and other funding that was her priority for the District in the national budget, including new funding for health care, state education services, Head Start, special education, low income housing, the first increase in Pell grants in four years, and more than a billion dollars for Ryan White CARE HIV/AIDS grants. The CR is expected to be passed in the House tomorrow (Wednesday).

Although the final D.C. appropriation at FY 07 levels was approved in the temporary CR last year, this FY 07 CR contains the final approval, as well as funding for the D.C. courts and prisons, offender re-entry, and public defender service that have been funded by the federal government since the 1997 Revitalization Act. Today, Congresswoman Norton also introduced the D.C. Budget Autonomy Act of 2007 that would end congressional review of the D.C. budget (see news release at https://www.norton.house.gov/).