Conference Report on H.R. 2112, Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

* Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of today's appropriations bills, which--while far from perfect--marks a distinct and bipartisan improvement over the House's original product. Today's bill restores key investments in jobs, innovation and public safety that were eliminated in the original House bills. In addition, we have removed the extreme policy riders on issues ranging from Wall Street reform to women's health. Additionally, in order to give the Appropriations Committees time to complete the rest of their FY 2012 work, H.R. 2112 extends the current Continuing Resolution through December 16, 2011.

* This conference report includes the Agriculture-FDA, Commerce-Justice-Science and Transportation-HUD Appropriations bills for FY 2012. Consistent with the $1.043 trillion cap on discretionary spending for FY 2012 set forth in the Budget Control Act, these three bills contain $128 billion in discretionary spending, with associated mandatory spending and transportation trust funds bringing the total to $297 billion. An additional $2.3 billion is provided for emergency disaster relief.

* The final Agricultural-FDA bill provides a total of $105.6 billion for domestic food assistance programs, including $80.4 billion for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, and $6.6 billion for the Women's Infant and Children, WIC, program. This result is $33 million more than the Senate mark and $9.3 billion more than the original House bill, which is appropriate given the increased demand for food aid during this economic recovery. The Food and Drug Administration receives $2.5 billion, which is $334 million more than the original House level, and will allow FDA to continue implementing the landmark Food Safety and Modernization Act to better protect the estimated 48 million Americans sickened by food-borne illness each year. Of concern in the final Agricultural-FDA bill is misguided language barring USDA from implementing new child nutrition standards and clearly inadequate funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission which has been charged with regulating the rampant speculation that helped precipitate the financial crisis. Now is not the time to be under-resourcing our regulatory cops in this demonstrably troubled neighborhood.

* The final Commerce-Justice-Science bill allocates $751 million to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, including $128 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program to provide training and technical assistance to U.S. manufacturers. The National Science Foundation, NSF, receives $7 billion, or $173 million above FY 2011, to enhance the basic research necessary to accelerate innovation and enhance U.S. competitiveness. And the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, is funded at $17.8 billion, which is a 6 percent increase over the original House level and includes $529.6 million for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

* Finally, I'm pleased that the final Transportation-HUD contains $18.9 billion for Section 8 vouchers and $9.34 billion for the project-based Section 8 program, as well as $45 million in housing counseling, which was not funded in FY 2011. Additionally, the THUD title in today's conference report preserves funding for key transit priorities, including $10.6 billion for the FTA, $1.95 billion for New Starts, $500 million for TIGER grants and $150 million for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority, WMATA. Unfortunately, this bill also mistakenly zeroes out high speed rail funding and cuts Community Development Block Grants by 12 percent.

* Mr. Speaker, while I do not agree with every choice made in this legislation, I commend my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for working through these issues on a bipartisan basis in a fiscally constrained environment and bringing this much improved product to the floor today.

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