Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016
Floor Speech
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Mr. HONDA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding.
I thank Chairman Culberson, who worked with me and my staff to formulate a better bill. While there are areas that could still be approved in the CJS bill, I am thankful for the chairman's bipartisan attitude and desire to find common ground.
Lifting the budget caps, we were able to more fully fund many of the essential programs. I would like to highlight a few of these.
I was pleased that we were able to dedicate funds for the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation to fund one competitively chosen center and to provide coordination of funding for NIST.
The modest increase for the Minority Business Development Agency will allow them to expand their work, creating jobs and fostering innovation and entrepreneurship amongst minority-owned businesses.
In the 2020 Census, we ensure that all communities--including those that are small, rural, or have limited proficiency with English--are counted. The rider making the American Community Survey optional was dropped.
We boosted funding for DOJ grant programs important to communities across the Nation, such as COPS, Violence Against Women Act, and Byrne Justice Assistance Grants. I am proud the community sexual assault kit Backlog Reduction Program, which is making great inroads in my district, receives $45 million.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that we were able to fund NASA at the highest level in years. This includes robust funding for both commercial crew and for SLS and Orion. We were able to provide healthy funding for science and exploration missions, and I hope the Flagship Europa mission will be able to include the expertise of all NASA centers. Happily, we restored Earth and geoscience funding in NASA and removed the language capping NSF investment into the geosciences. Mr. Speaker, I will continue to work to remove the limitations in NSF on social, behavorial, and economic sciences in the future.
Many of the harmful immigration riders were removed, including ones that would have stripped the administration's ability to defend DACA and DAPA in the courts, and that would have withheld DOJ grants to jurisdictions with sanctuary city policies.
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Mr. HONDA. Mr. Speaker, while I have problems with several non- Appropriations items in this bill, the CJS in the omnibus bill will invest in our Nation's future and move us forward.
Mr. Speaker, I want to again thank Chairman Culberson, and I look forward to continuing to work with the gentleman closely.
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