[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 21083-21087]
[From the U.S. 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 20877.)
  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.

[[Page 21084]]





[[Page 21085]]



[[Page 21086]]

  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),

[[Page 21087]]

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 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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