Foundation of the Federal Bar Association Charter Amendments Act of 2019

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for bringing this bill to the floor.

I support the mission and work of the Foundation of the Federal Bar Association. I support passage of H.R. 1663, which would give the foundation more operational flexibility, as I did when the House passed a similar version last Congress.

However, I would be remiss if I did not note my concern with section 6 of this bill. Federal law requires the foundation's principal office to be in the District of Columbia. Section 6 would amend that requirement and allow the foundation to have its principal office at any location in the United States decided by its board of directors and specified by its bylaws. Currently, the foundation's principal office is in Arlington, Virginia, in violation of Federal law.

I am speaking on this bill not to oppose it but to make a larger point about the location of Federal agencies. While the foundation is a federally chartered corporation and operates independently of the Federal Government, H.R. 1663 comes to the floor at a time when the Trump administration and many Members of Congress, among them my Republican colleagues, are working to relocate Federal agencies outside the national capital region.

Recently, Senators Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn introduced a bill that would relocate most agencies outside of the Nation's Capital and the national capital region. We can have a discussion on ways to make government work better for the American people, but such bills should not be part of that discussion.

These types of bills or administration proposals are often used for cheap talking points against the national capital region and Federal employees or are intended to undermine the work of the Federal agencies the bills or proposals are ostensibly designed to help.

Eighty-five percent of Federal employees work outside of the national capital region already. Hundreds of Federal employees and their families have already been harmed by the recent relocation of two U.S. Department of Agriculture agencies, as has the work of those agencies.

Congress cannot do its job without the unvarnished facts and briefings that nonpartisan agencies give the House and Senate almost daily. I have already gotten language in appropriations bills that would block politically motivated moves outside of the national capital region, and I will continue to fight agency relocations with every tool at my disposal.

Fortunately, H.R. 1663 is not about relocation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source