Senate Appropriations Committee Bill Restores Funding for Norton’s Top Priorities, with No Riders
WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said she is grateful that the Senate Appropriations Committee restored funding for her top District of Columbia priorities that the House Appropriations Committee had cut from the president's budget. Norton is also pleased that the bill, which was passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday, does not include any prohibitions on D.C.'s use of its local funds.
The Senate Appropriations Committee-passed fiscal year 2014 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill fully funded the president's request of $35 million for the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program (DCTAG), which is $5 million more than the fiscal year 2013 enacted level and a shift from the House's bill, which cut the program's funding by 50 percent. Norton was also encouraged that the bill did not adopt additional means testing for DCTAG, as proposed by the president. She was pleased that the House bill also did not include that provision either. The bill also fully funded the president's $14.5 million request for the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water). The House bill zeroed out funding. The funds are for the ongoing work to manage storm water and reduce sewer overflows into the Anacostia and Potomac rivers and Rock Creek, Norton's top environmental priority. The $5 million in the president's budget for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in D.C. was also fully funded by the committee, compared to $2.5 million in the House bill. The committee also fully funded the president's $9.8 million request for D.C. to redevelop the St. Elizabeths East Campus, which is owned by D.C. Norton pressed strongly for assistance for the major redevelopment of the East Campus, which will complement the federal presence on the West Campus and provide construction and permanent jobs to many D.C. residents. Furthermore, the bill provides $20 million for D.C. public schools and $20 million for public charter schools, a $2 million increase for each from the House bill. The bill also provides $500,000 for the Major General David F. Wherley, Jr. District of Columbia National Guard Retention and College Access Program, for tuition for D.C. National Guard soldiers. Norton noted that the House Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee was boxed in by the diminished allocation it received and decided to focus its funding on law enforcement functions, such as the courts.
"The bill has a keen eye towards the District's needs and priorities in continuing to fund DCTAG, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, and storm water and flood management," said Norton. "I am especially grateful to our new subcommittee chair, Senator Tom Udall, who has hit the ground running with an understanding of what the District most needs."
Although the Senate has not historically been the source of most prohibitions on D.C.'s use of its local funds, Norton thanked her Senate allies and a national coalition of more than 50 organizations that have successfully helped to keep anti-home-rule riders off of the D.C.'s appropriations bill in the past, and succeeded in the Senate once again. The coalition sent a letter to House and Senate appropriators earlier this month urging a clean D.C. appropriations bill, and some of the coalition members appeared with Norton at a press conference earlier this year pledging to get their members to contact appropriators to ensure that the D.C. appropriations bill did not contain any riders.
Published: July 26, 2013