Congressional Record, Volume 150 Issue 125 (Wednesday, October 6, 2004)

[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 125 (Wednesday, October 6, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H8204-H8208]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 4850, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATIONS
ACT, 2005

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 822, I
call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 4850) making
appropriations for the government of the District of Columbia and other
activities chargeable in whole or in part against the revenues of said
District for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, and for other
purposes.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Terry). Pursuant to House Resolution
822, the conference report is considered as having been read.
(For conference report and statement, see proceedings of the House of
October 5, 2004 at page H8144.)
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr.
Frelinghuysen) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) each
will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr.
Frelinghuysen).

general leave

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all
Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their
remarks and include extraneous material on the conference report to
accompany the bill, H.R. 4850, and that I may include tabular material
on the same.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from New Jersey?
There was no objection.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I bring before you today the fiscal year 2005 District
of Columbia appropriations bill. First, Mr. Speaker, let me extend my
particular thanks to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) for
all his help and wise counsel and hard work and dedication to this city
and to moving this bill forward in such an expeditious manner. He has
been a pleasure to work with. May I also thank the other members of my
committee on both sides of the aisle for their keen interest in this
bill. I thank Chairman Young for his guidance and support, and
especially the staff. No bill moves without the dedication of a truly
dedicated staff: Joel Kaplan, our subcommittee clerk on the majority
side; Clelia Alvarado who works with him; Kathy Rowan who works with
Joel Kaplan; Nancy Fox, my chief of staff. And on the minority side
Martha Foley, the minority clerk, and working with her, Michelle
Anderson-Lee who is dedicated as chief of staff to the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah).
Mr. Speaker, this bill totals $8.3 billion in local funds, $7.2
billion of which are in operating funds and $1.1 billion in capital
outlay funds, and $560 million for Federal payments to various District
programs and projects. There is much to be proud of in this bill. I
believe it reflects Congress's continuing commitment to helping our
Nation's Capital. This is where we all work and many of us live.
Of the $560 million provided for Federal payments to various programs
and projects in the District, $409 million is allocated for the
District of Columbia courts, public defender services, and the Court
Services and Offender Supervision Agency. These are District functions
that the Federal Government assumed responsibility for in the National
Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997.
The remaining $151 million are for programs and projects that
directly benefit the District. They include many city priorities sought
by Mayor Williams, the city council, city residents and supported by
Members of Congress and our committee.
They include $25.6 million for the very popular tuition assistance
program for District college-bound students, $15 million to reimburse
the District for added emergency planning and security costs related to
the presence of the Federal Government in this city, $40 million for
the three-prong school choice program. This is a program which helps
more school children and gives more parents in this city choices about
their child's education. $6 million to complete the construction of the
new unified communications center, badly needed and sought by the city.
More money for the Anacostia waterfront initiative; and more dollars
for the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority, which in fact
improves the cleanliness of the Anacostia River. $6 million for a new
public school library initiative. Many school libraries are lacking
books and computers that work. $5 million to improve foster care in the
District. More money for transportation assistance and for family
literacy. And $8 million for a new bioterrorism and forensics
laboratory, a long-sought facility which will expedite a lot of
critical work.
These are all initiatives we can be proud to support. In particular,
I want to take a minute just to highlight the continuing efforts at
helping the children of the District. To help the children of the
District, the bill includes $5 million for the recently established
foster care improvement program; $1 million, as I said earlier, for the
family literacy program; $6 million for a new library learning center
initiative to be matched by the District; and $40 million for the
school improvement program.
Mr. Speaker, in summary, the fiscal year 2005 District of Columbia
appropriations bill is fiscally responsible, balanced and deserves
bipartisan support. I am proud of our work together this year to
expedite this bill so that the city can spend its own resources and
better use ours.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) for
his support.

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Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I
would like to thank the majority chairman of this committee. He has
done extraordinary work in bringing to the floor a bill that has, I
think, almost unanimous support in this House, not because it is a
perfect bill but because it has been a perfect process, that is, a
process that has been inclusive and that has been driven by the
determined and public-spirited leadership of the chairman.
There are initiatives like the $6 million school library initiative
and other initiatives that have the personal trademark of the chairman
to try to improve the life chances of young people in this District.
There are others that I will refer to momentarily.
I just want to thank the chairman for his extraordinary leadership
and a process that has been perfect in terms of making sure that all of
the issues that are important here in the District have been listened
to and responded to. There has been a complete hearing process. I would
like to thank the staff both on the Democratic side and on the majority
side. Joel Kaplan has led the committee's work. Martha Foley. I would
like to thank, obviously, Michelle Anderson on my staff and Rob Nabors
for his excellent leadership and guidance as we have moved through this
on the minority appropriations staff.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman
from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).
Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend, the
gentleman from Pennsylvania, for yielding me this time. I begin with
special thanks to the gentleman from New Jersey and the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, if they will allow me to call them the engineers who have
wrought this miracle. For those of us in the District of Columbia, it
seems nothing short of that. I call them the engineers because they
drove the train straight to the station with no unnecessary stops along
the way. For the residents of the District of Columbia whose
appropriation is now out, that has very special meaning.
I am also grateful to the chairman of the full committee, the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), who I believe is term-limited and
to the ranking member, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), because
throughout their tenure on the committee, leading the committee, they
have always understood that if the D.C. appropriation had to be here at
all, it ought to be up and out. I appreciate their leadership
throughout.
I cannot say enough about the leadership of the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Fattah). Their leadership shines on the face of this conference report.
They must be exceedingly proud that there are only two conference
reports out, ready for the President's signature, and that, except for
Defense, D.C. is the only one. We are very grateful that D.C. is one of
those two. We are particularly grateful because these two leaders have
understood that these are Federal funds that are very different from
other Federal funds, that these are Federal funds for a city and not a
Federal agency, and, therefore, when the funds of a city are held up,
untold damage is done to the management of that city.

{time} 1230

The Congress has been critical of the management of the District of
Columbia over the years without understanding the role the Congress has
played in those management difficulties.
Try running a big city when their appropriation is here 3, 4, 5
months later than in their own State or city and perhaps they will get
an understanding of why, for the District, this has meant management
disarray, in part its fault, no doubt, but certainly with the degree of
responsibility in the Congress itself, with disarray from bills for
school books that could not be paid so books would not come, or could
not be delivered, to vital programs that could not be started.
This year something very important happened, and it is the second
year that it has happened. The appropriators were able to allow D.C. to
spend its own money on time. This is the rest of the money. This is the
Federal money. This is the nontaxpayer-raised money. That D.C. was able
to begin October 1 spending its own money is virtually unheard of, at
least since the majority took control, and it is profoundly appreciated
by the residents of the District of Columbia. Spending our own money,
not at last year's levels, but at the approved levels of the Committee
on Appropriations has made a world of difference already.
I must say that I think that the District deserves this treatment and
respect. It deserves it with seven balanced budgets and surpluses. It
deserves it because the city that 8 years ago had an investment bond
rating that was below investment grade now has an A rating by all three
agencies.
One of the reasons that it has not been able to get above A, as it
strives to do, is because of the congressional process. The investment
agencies have been very clear that the District's budget having to come
here at all imports uncertainty, and that uncertainty has to be
reflected in the interest that the District of Columbia taxpayers pay.
Therefore, anything of the kind we have seen this year, where our
appropriation gets out on time, first and foremost comes to the
attention of the investment agencies. And that means that taxpayer-
raised money in the District of Columbia can go for the real
necessities of the District of Columbia instead of for increased
interest.
We have the highest debt service. All of this is wound up in the
unique structural difference between the District and other States and
localities.
The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen) and the gentleman
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) have recognized that to the extent that
they could mitigate the burden that the congressional process brings to
the District budget both in time and in extra cost, that it was their
choice to try to do so. And I appreciate that they have done exactly
that.
Few States can say that they ran 7 straight years of surpluses and
balanced budgets. These were years of some hardship for States. The
District of Columbia was in the same economy and in some sense worse,
because of 9/11, because our largest industry, the tourist industry,
was seriously affected, and yet those surpluses have come. The reason
for that is, of course, extraordinary prudence. For that prudence it
seems to me we all would want to commend the Council of the District of
Columbia and the Mayor of the District of Columbia. They have had the
highest reserve fund, and I appreciate and they appreciate that there
have been small reductions that I think take into account the prudence
with which they have run the city.
This appropriation process, rounding it out, completing it, was
necessary because the Federal funds for State functions particularly
are in this bill. And these are State functions, prisons, courts that
no city carries. The Revitalization Act, therefore, takes up the cost
of those State functions, and those State functions are there, and we
are very grateful for that. Other non-D.C. funds, Federal funds, are
here.
I am grateful that the Public Safety Reimbursement Act, the act I
introduced some years ago, is now regularly funded in the President's
budget. It is fully funded here. It reimburses the District for
national events, everything from President Reagan's funeral to the huge
Choice March here. All that expense used to fall to the residents of
the District of Columbia, making it very difficult for the city to get
toward the balance and the surpluses that it now insists upon.
I am grateful for the increase in the Tuition Access Act. Not every
Member understands why the Federal Government should be funding this
bill. I can understand their confusion. But the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Fattah) worked so closely with us. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom
Davis), who was the lead sponsor of this bill with me, worked on this
bill 5 years ago because the District of Columbia has no State
university system the way every other Member here does.
All this bill does is put the District in the same position that
other Members are in by allowing our residents to go to State colleges,
State university systems, and elsewhere. And look what

[[Page H8208]]

it has done. In a region where one needs a college education to get any
kind of decent job, we now have a 30 percent increase in young people
going to college.
Most critical and what we have tried to do, the authorizers and the
appropriators, is to put the District in the same position that any
other city would be in. For us it means that taxpayers do not move out
of the District when the children get to be 15, 16, and 17, because
they can walk across the line into a region and get a low in-State
tuition.
So this bill, besides its equity function, has been critical to
keeping taxpayers in the District of Columbia. The large return to the
Federal dollar is unspoken, but it cannot be denied.
I am grateful to the chairman. I am grateful to the ranking member,
and I am grateful to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) that
there were no riders on this bill. That is one of the reasons this bill
was always last out, because we have to fight those riders, and that
simply elongates, stretches out the time that this bill is on the
floor.
I have seen this bill on the floor 8 and 10 hours. This is the
smallest bill. This bill is irrelevant to every Member except me. With
their eye focused on the prize, our appropriation, let us get it up and
out; the appropriators have done their job to a fare-thee-well.
I regret that there are still riders on this bill that will not be on
the bills in the Members' States, the rider that forbids us to pay
using our local funds for abortions for poor women. That rider is
perhaps always going to be controversial.
But the Senate removed two riders: the needle exchange rider, which
would allow us to fund the exchange of dirty for clean needles and
reduce the HIV/AIDS rate; and the rider, the shameless rider, that
keeps us from lobbying for our own rights. Those, the Senate said, also
should be eliminated from this bill. The House was not able to do so.
Finally, if I could once again thank the gentleman from New Jersey
(Chairman Frelinghuysen) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Fattah) for the extraordinary job that they have done on this bill. Let
me say that in a real sense, what they have done on this bill
forecasts, is a prologue of what would happen if the budget autonomy
bill that the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) and I have
pending before this House passes.
We think that there is a very decent chance of its passing in the
session when we come back. It would automatically release our Federal
funds, as my colleagues have had to do by act of the Committee on
Appropriations. So they have, I think, demonstrated, by the way in
which they have run the District of Columbia Subcommittee, something
far larger; and that is how the House should move, to generally smooth
the operation of the D.C. budget out of this House and into the hands
of the people who raise the money, the people of the District of
Columbia. They have my gratitude.
I know I expressed the gratitude of our elected officials in the
District of Columbia and also of our residents, who have watched this
bill this time pass through this House with what for us seems like
lightning speed. It is the speed on the wings of the two leaders of our
appropriation, and they have our thanks once again.
Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let me thank the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia for her
comments and her insight and assistance as we move through.
Let me conclude my remarks, and I will be prepared to yield back the
balance of my time. But let me just state, there is a lot that I could
talk about that is in this bill in terms of help and assistance and
innovation and creativity, but I think that a lot has already been said
about the advances in the District's fiscal health and a lot of work
that has been done.
I want to highlight just the college assistance program, the resident
tuition program, which I was one of the original cosponsors of with the
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) and the gentlewoman from the
District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) some 5 years ago. It is an amazing
program. It has been very successful.
And I want to return to what I was saying about the chairman of this
committee. He has visited schools and committees, been out in
neighborhoods and at the waterfront in the District. He has been active
and aggressive in terms of trying to have the insight necessary to make
some of the decisions that have to be made in this process; and I want
to publicly thank him for his leadership on the subcommittee. It has
been a pleasure to work with him this year on this process.
And I want to thank, again, the staff.
Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back
the balance of my time.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Let me return the compliment to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Fattah) for his dedication and knowledge of the District's needs and
priorities. He has been a great coworker with me on behalf of all the
members of the committee, a keen interest in bettering the lives of the
citizens of this city. And both of us are so proud of the gentlewoman
from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton). We appreciate her pats on
the back to us.
This is a great city. We are trying to make it better. I thank her
for her strong advocacy as we go about our work trying to get this bill
out and the money to the city, their money as well as Federal money,
because we know it will be well spent.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Terry). Without objection, the previous
question is ordered on the conference report.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the conference report.
Pursuant to clause 10 of rule XX, the yeas and nays are ordered.
Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further proceedings on this question
will be postponed.

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