Norton Secures Victories in Final Fiscal Year 2024 D.C. Appropriations Bill

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton said the final fiscal year (FY) 2024 District of Columba Appropriations bill, which President Biden signed into law last week, includes many victories for D.C. The bill provides $40 million for the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant Program (DCTAG), a program created by a Norton bill. The appropriations bill, however, also includes two anti-home rule riders, one prohibiting D.C. from spending its own local funds on abortion services for low-income women and the other prohibiting D.C. from spending its local funds on recreational marijuana commercialization.

"I am pleased at many of the provisions in the D.C. spending bill signed into law last week,” Norton said. "I am particularly pleased the bill provides $40 million for DCTAG. DCTAG is critical for D.C. students and families, who do not have the same array of public institutions of higher education that most states do, and for the D.C. tax base because DCTAG encourages taxpayers to move to and remain in the District.”

Norton secured the following victories:

• The bill provides $40 million for DCTAG. DCTAG makes up the difference for D.C. residents between in-state and out-of-state tuition at public institutions of higher education in the United States.
• $50 million for construction of a new building for Howard University Hospital.
• The bill exempts D.C. from federal government shutdowns in Fiscal Year 2025. Norton has gotten annual shutdown exemptions enacted every year since the 2013 federal government shutdown.
• The bill provides $8 million for D.C. Water for ongoing work to control flooding in D.C. and to clean up the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers and Rock Creek.
• The bill provides $30 million for the Emergency Planning and Security Fund, which pays for the unique public safety and security costs the District incurs as the nation's capital.
• The bill provides $600,000 for the Major General David F. Wherley, Jr. District of Columbia National Guard Retention and College Access Program.
• The bill provides $4 million to combat HIV/AIDS in D.C.
• The bill authorizes sledding on the Capitol grounds.

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