Appropriations Committee Approves FY 2014 CJS Bill

Press Release

The annual spending bill that funds the Departments of Commerce and Justice, as well as several of the nation's science programs, approved today by the full House Appropriations Committee reduces spending below fiscal year 2013 levels while preserving core priorities, including job creation and cybersecurity initiatives, according to Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman of the House Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) Appropriations subcommittee.

Wolf said the bill is 5.6 percent below fiscal year 2013 levels and 7.4 percent below the president's budget request. It terminates 39 programs, resulting in savings of more than $500 million from FY 2013. Since returning as a chairman of the CJS subcommittee in 2011, Wolf has reduced spending in the departments and agencies covered by the bill by more than $12 billion.

"The bill continues my effort to reign in federal spending while continuing to preserve core priorities such as job creation, boosting U.S. competitiveness through smart investments in science and space exploration, fighting crime, gangs and terrorism, and bolstering cybersecurity" Wolf said. "It makes job creation a top priority by maintaining manufacturing and job repatriation initiatives, while focusing resources and oversight on trade enforcement against foreign competitors who are violating trade agreements. It also includes a significant focus on expanding the FBI's cybersecurity efforts and on protecting U.S. networks from foreign espionage and cyber attacks. Finally, it includes important oversight language on the Justice Department, especially in the wake of the Inspector General reports finding dysfunction in the Civil Rights Division and patterns of nepotism in hiring."

Highlights of the bill include:

Job Creation Initiatives

- Reparation grants and loans. The bill continues initiatives begun in 2012 to offer incentives to U.S. companies that bring jobs back to America and to companies that develop innovative technologies in the U.S.
- Increasing exports. The bill identifies increasing U.S. exports as critical to expanding economic growth and job creation, and prioritizes resources for export promotion and trade enforcement activities.
- ACE Tool. The bill includes provisions to improve upon the "Access Costs Everywhere" Tool developed by the Department of Commerce to analyze and report on opportunities for companies to operate in the U.S.
- Rebuilding American manufacturing. The bill includes $120 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program, which helps U.S. businesses streamline manufacturing techniques and increase efficiency and profits.

National Security

- Federal Bureau of Investigation. The bill includes $8.1 billion for the FBI to fund national security programs, investigations of cyber attacks, violent crime and gang task force programs, and financial and mortgage fraud.
- Domestic Radicalization. The report directs the FBI to prepare an extensive report documenting its most recent efforts to counter the domestic radicalization threat with a particular emphasis on countering the Internet as a tool for radicalization.
- Prohibiting cooperation with CAIR. The bill reaffirms the FBI's longstanding policy prohibiting employees from engaging in any formal non-investigative cooperation with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism financing court case, and urges the U.S. Attorney General to adopt a similar policy for all Justice Department officials.
- Economic warfare. The bill requires the FBI to study the potential for terrorist financing operations both domestically and abroad, including economic attacks of any kind, and identify what preparations are in place to mitigate such an attack.
- FBI reforms. The bill includes funding for a comprehensive external review of the FBI's implementation of FBI-related recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
- Fort Hood. The report directs the Department of Justice to specify its role in how the Fort Hood terrorist attack was designated and what its policies are in terms of categorizing cases.

Cybersecurity

- Preventing cyber espionage. The bill requires the departments of Commerce and Justice, NASA and NSF to assess the risk of cyber espionage or sabotage before acquiring any information technology system. In addition, if these departments or agencies plan to acquire systems produced by entities owned, directed or subsidized by the People's Republic of China, they must first make a determination that to do so is in the national interest.
- FBI cybersecurity initiative. The bill provides an increase in funds for investigative, intelligence and technology improvements to prevent and combat malicious cyber intrusions to be known as the Next Generation Cyber (NGC). The measure also recommends that FBI develop a national network of cyber task forces, based upon the Joint Terrorism Task Force model, to leverage the participation of state, local and international partners.
- National Cyber Threat Assessment. The bill directs the FBI to continue to produce an annual national cyber threat assessment -- both classified and unclassified -- that identifies and ranks the foreign governments posing the greatest threats to the U.S.

Chinese Market Manipulation

- Trade enforcement remedies. The bill urges U.S. trade agencies to more aggressively monitor and take action against China's state-owned companies that are manipulating the market and hindering job creation in the U.S.
- Limiting bilateral activity with China. The bill continues the ban prohibiting the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and NASA from engaging in bilateral activities with China or Chinese-owned companies unless authorized or certified via procedures in the bill.

Investments in the Sciences

- National Science Foundation. The bill provides NSF with $7 billion to fund core research and education activities that are critical to innovation and U.S. economic competitiveness, including funding for an advanced manufacturing initiative.
- NASA. The bill provides $3.6 billion for exploration to keep NASA on schedule for the upcoming Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and Space Launch System flight program milestones, and $4.8 billion for NASA science programs, such as planetary science research.
- National Institute for Standards and Technology. The bill provides NIST with $784 million to fund important core research activities to help advance U.S. competitiveness, innovation, and economic growth, a decrease of $25 million below FY 2013 levels.
- STEM Education. The bill directs the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to continue developing a comprehensive dissemination strategy for K-12 STEM education research findings to achieve the goals of a "one-stop" information source.
- Ocean exploration and research. The bill provides $25 million to support ocean exploration and research projects and educational programs.
- National Weather Service. The bill includes $1.06 billion to ensure the continuation of important weather data collection and forecasting abilities for potentially devastating natural disasters. (The bill also encourages NIST to expand its current research to develop tornado resistant building, including inexpensive safe modular rooms that could be quickly adopted by the construction industry.)

Preventing Gun Violence

- Provides $55 million, which is $37.3 million above FY 2013 levels, to help states provide better data, including mental health records, to the National Instant Background Check System (NICS). The NICS Improvement Act was approved by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush following the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007. Includes $3 million in funding for the Department of Justice to establish a National Center for Campus Safety to develop and share best practices for maintaining safety at educational institutions of all levels. The center was first funded in FY 2013 via reprogramming.
- Rejects the administration's plan to eliminate funding for the National Gang Intelligence Center at the FBI.
- Contains $1.1 billion for the ATF, $10 million above the fiscal year 2013 enacted level. It also includes a prohibition on funding to transfer firearms to known members of drug cartels, such as those transfers that occurred under the "Fast and Furious" program.

Prison Reform

- Charles Colson Task Force on Federal Corrections. The bill provides $1 million to establish and support a nine-person bipartisan task force to address the challenges in the federal corrections system. As part of its work, the task force shall examine: overcrowding in BOP facilities and options to avert continued growth in the system population; measures to address overcrowding within facilities; violence in the system, including gang violence, and improved public safety measures; prison rehabilitation and employment programs; and reentry programs and policies to reduce recidivism. The task force shall also undertake a comprehensive analysis of relevant criminal justice data; identify factors driving the growth in prison populations; study ""lessons learned'' from successful State-level justice reinvestment initiatives; and evaluate current and potential criminal justice policies, including the cost-effectiveness of spending on corrections. The task force is named for Charles ""Chuck'' Colson, who went from counsel to the president to federal prisoner because of his involvement in the Watergate scandal. However, as a result of his prison experience and the spiritual transformation he underwent there, Colson went on to found the Prison Fellowship to support and minister to prisoners and their families in the United States and around the world, and later the Justice Fellowship, which he established as an advocacy organization to champion prisoner rights and fight injustices within the criminal justice system.

Other highlights

- The bill includes $413 million for the Office on Violence Against Women, which is higher than both the FY 2013 level and the president's 2014 budget request.
- The bill continues to prohibit the transfer or release of Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States.
- Funds the Patent and Trademark Office at $3 billion and includes a provision allowing the PTO to use any fees in excess of the estimated collected amount, subject to congressional approval.
- The bill encourages NIST to continue its work to developing initiatives to accurately assess the presence of acute and chronic Lyme disease.
- Included in the DOJ funding are provisions to combat violent gangs, conduct an independent review of the Civil Rights Division, issue reports on human trafficking and human rights abuses, conduct a review of improper hiring practices and nepotism within the Justice Management Division and ramp up efforts to combat prescription drug abuse and drug-related crimes in the Caribbean.
- The bill includes $90 million for youth mentoring grants and $67 million for missing and exploited children programs.
- Directs departments and agencies receiving funding though the bill to purchase promotional material like T-shirts and hats from U.S. companies when practical.

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