Norton Has Some Concerns with Yesterday's Markup of D.C. Appropriations Bill

Press Release

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today offered her take on the House Appropriations Committee markup yesterday of the Fiscal Year 2014 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill. Her greatest concerns with the bill approved by the Committee are the 50 percent cut -- $15 million compared to the fiscal year 2013 enacted level of $30 million -- in funding for the District of Columbia Tuition Assistance Grant program (DCTAG) and the rider that prohibits the District from spending its local funds on abortion services for low-income women. Norton was also concerned with the elimination of all funding for the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water), which had funded the ongoing work to fix D.C.'s sewer system and clean up the Anacostia and Potomac rivers and Rock Creek. The zeroing out of the entire enacted fiscal year 2013 level of $15 million for DC Water comes at a time when flooding in Ward 5 shows the urgency of redoubling efforts and funding for DC Water. Norton also expressed her disappointment with the 50 percent cut to funds for testing and treatment of D.C. residents for HIV/AIDS -- $2.5 million compared to the fiscal year 2013 enacted level of $5 million.

However, since the president requested $35 million for DCTAG, $5 million for testing and treatment of D.C. residents for HIV/AIDS, and $14.5 million for DC Water in his fiscal year 2014 budget, Norton believes that she can get the Senate to restore the full funding that the House took out. Since cuts of this magnitude are reflected throughout the House appropriations subcommittee allocations, there is a good chance that a continuing resolution, which would maintain the fiscal year 2013 enacted funding levels, rather than this appropriations bill, will be enacted. Norton noted that the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee was boxed in by the diminished allocation it received and decided to fund official functions, such as the courts.

In addition to the funding cuts, Norton was disappointed that the rider that prohibits the District from spending its local funds on abortion services for low-income women was once again included in the bill. The abortion rider, the only rider remaining on D.C.'s appropriations bill, was actually in the base text, making it more difficult to defeat because Republicans would have had to vote to approve of its removal. In light of the obstacles, Norton said she was particularly impressed by and grateful for the passion of the members who spoke up for the District in favor of an amendment to strike the rider. She expressed her thanks to Representatives José Serrano (D-NY), the ranking member of the subcommittee, who she said is "one of the best defenders of D.C. home rule that we have ever had in the Congress," Nita Lowey (D-NY), the Ranking Member of the full Committee, and Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Mike Quigley (D-IL), who offered the amendment together.

Norton stressed that she will work with her Senate allies and with a national coalition of more than 50 organizations that have successfully helped to keep riders off of D.C.'s appropriations bill in the past. The coalition sent a letter to House and Senate appropriators last week 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.

"For several years now, we have successfully kept all but one infringement on D.C.'s local control of its funds out of our appropriations bill," said Norton. "House Republican overreach to bring federal force into local affairs only heightens our determination, especially considering the denial of a vital reproductive health service to low-income women. I am enormously grateful to our allies in the House, the Senate, and throughout the country. They fortify our resolve to continue to insist that local funds belong to local people and to fight for this principle."

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