Congressman Fattah Statement on House Passage of FY16 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Act

Statement

Congressman Chaka Fattah (D-PA), Ranking Member on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS), released the following statement after the House passed H.R. 2578, the CJS Appropriations Act, with a final vote of 242-183. Fattah voted against the bill:

"Last night, the House voted largely along party lines to pass the FY16 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Act that will fund the U.S. Departments of Commerce and Justice, the National Science Foundation, NASA, and other related agencies. First, I must commend my colleague, Chairman Culberson (R-TX), for including many of my priorities in the bill and for his cooperation and leadership. Our working relationship reflects a bipartisan process where the views and priorities of the entire subcommittee were wholly considered.

"I am proud of many aspects of this bill. First and foremost, the legislation includes $146.9 million for neuroscience--an area that I believe is critically important to our scientific and medical discovery. Additionally, the bill provides $95 million for youth mentoring which has been proven to effectively inspire young people around the country to achieve both academic and career success. It provides $32 million to the Minority Business Development Agency and $11 million to the Regional Innovation Program--both important Commerce programs that will encourage and support small business growth across the country. The bill also includes healthy funding levels for several NASA programs, including Space Technology and Commercial Crew.

"However, I could not support a bill that defunds so many of our nation's essential programs in such a significant fashion. This bill is hampered by the constraints of the Budget Control Act--a law that prevents us from meeting the needs of this great nation. As a Congress, we must ensure that we are operating in a fiscally responsible way, but this bill falls short of what we need to do on many levels. Our exceptionalism requires us to have some foresight; we are living in an era of innovation and scientific discovery, and we must not shirk our responsibility to continue funding the federal programs that will allow us to invest in these areas, and remain competitive as a nation.

"This is an imperfect bill, and unfortunately we cannot improve the process, but I am hopeful that we can improve the product as we go into conference with the Senate."

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