Norton's Two Biggies Pass in Congress (9/25/08)

Washington, D.C. - With the Wall Street collapse displacing other issues, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) succeeded last night in achieving her two most important priorities - the local D.C. budget on time to begin the new fiscal year, October 1, and $97.5 million to begin construction of the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) headquarters on the St. Elizabeth's West campus. Norton succeeded in getting the D.C. local budget appropriations out on time by attaching it to a federal government Continuing Resolution (CR), uniquely allowing the District to spend at next year's levels. Passage in the Senate is imminent.

The 176-acre of DHS headquarters will mark the first time the federal government has located a major agency east of the Anacostia River. The ambitious compound featuring several agencies will be the largest federal construction project since the Pentagon in 1943. "The jump-start the DHS headquarters will give to the revitalization of Martin Luther King Avenue is just what both D.C. and Ward 8 need," Norton said. "Federal dollars will be put to use to stimulate our local economy." Community meetings on the headquarters have been ongoing for several years, and clean-up of the site has already begun. Norton held a hearing featuring residents, local businesses and the city on securing local businesses for the many activities that will be generated from the project as well as a meeting with the small businesses where GSA educated residents and businesses on the competitive process for obtaining the many contracts that will be spun off.

Securing the District's appropriations on time this year marked the sixth consecutive year the Congresswoman has done so. Before Norton negotiated the new D.C. appropriations procedure, initially with Republican appropriators, the city's local budget appropriation was consistently late; forcing the city to spend its taxpayer-raised funds only at the prior year's spending levels until its new budget came months after the new fiscal year began. Norton's procedure allowing the city to spend at next year's spending levels is an innovation she conceived on the way to passage of her D.C. budget autonomy bill, with passage expected next year. Under her bill, the District of Columbia budget would no longer come to Congress.