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Senate Subcommittee Fully Funds DCTAG and Other Norton D.C. Priorities

June 24, 2014

WASHINGTON, DC -- Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said she was relieved, even elated, that the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government's fiscal year 2015 District of Columbia Appropriations bill, approved today, meets the congresswoman's priorities, especially full funding for the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program (DCTAG), plus a $10 million increase from the fiscal year 2014 enacted level. DCTAG, the city's unique, federally funded college access program, was put in jeopardy when the D.C. Council passed the D.C. Promise bill despite warnings from Congress that it could risk DCTAG funding. However, after the D.C. Promise bill was passed, Norton wrote to the President and got a $10 million increase for DCTAG in his fiscal year 2015 budget request in order to shore up DCTAG funding. "The decision by the Council and the Mayor ultimately not to provide any funding for D.C. Promise has given us the chance to preserve and increase funding for DCTAG this year," Norton said. DCTAG has doubled college attendance in D.C. and currently serves more than 5,000 D.C. students. The subcommittee's bill fully funds the President's fiscal year 2015 budget request of $40 million for DCTAG, which is $20 million more than provided in the House Appropriations Committee-approved fiscal year 2015 D.C. Appropriations bill and $10 million more than the fiscal year 2014 enacted level.

The Senate bill also funds Norton's other D.C. priorities. The bill provides an extra $5 million to combat HIV/AIDS in D.C., one of Norton's top priorities, which is the same amount the House Appropriations Committee-approved fiscal year 2015 D.C. Appropriations bill provided and the same as the fiscal year 2014 enacted level. The bill provides $16 million for the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water) for ongoing work to fix D.C.'s federally constructed sewer system and to control flooding and clean up the Anacostia and Potomac rivers and Rock Creek, which is a $2 million increase from the fiscal year 2014 enacted level of $14 million. Norton is particularly appreciative of the Senate funds for D.C. Water because the House Appropriations Committee-approved fiscal year 2015 D.C. Appropriations bill did not provide any funding for DC Water.

The subcommittee has released only a summary of its bill, and the remainder of the D.C. provisions in the bill likely will not be known until the full committee approves the bill.

Published: June 24, 2014