Issue Position: Norton Ready for Two Posts of Major Importance to the District of Columbia
Issue Position
Norton Ready for Two Posts of Major Importance to the District of Columbia
Norton's new Subcommittee Leadership Post: A Prime Position to Bring Transportation Benefits to the District
Norton's new post as the Ranking Member of the Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee's Highways and Transit Subcommittee will give her and the District a lead seat at the table as the subcommittee drafts a new surface transportation reauthorization bill next year. She now has jurisdiction over Metro, streetcars, buses and other surface transportation in addition to highways, bridges, roads and infrastructure development. To prepare for the surface transportation reauthorization bill, Norton brought in six top industry experts for a dialogue with committee Democrats to increase understanding of the emerging issues surrounding surface transportation throughout the country. As a longtime proponent of protecting the environment, Norton also will use the reauthorization bill to provide for greener transportation and greater use of technology to reduce congestion. In November, she test drove an electric car to learn more about new all-electric transportation technology, which she believes can be the wave of the near-future.
Economic Development Subcommittee Benefits to Continue for D.C.
Norton was able to maintain momentum for her career-long priority on economic development in D.C. by continuing her service as a senior member of the T&I Committee's Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management. The subcommittee has enabled Norton to develop two new neighborhoods in the District -- NoMa and Capitol Riverfront, and to begin the revitalization of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Ward 8, which is already benefitting from the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security complex under construction.
Norton Opens Three of Her Major Economic Development Projects
New Coast Guard Headquarters, the First in Department of Homeland Security Complex, Opens
After Norton secured the initial $1.4 billion for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) headquarters construction and guiding congressional oversight of construction, she took D.C. residents on a preview tour this year of the 1.1-million-sqaure-foot U.S. Coast Guard headquarters on the St. Elizabeths West Campus, just before cutting the ribbon. Civilian and military employees have now moved into the state-of-the-art building. The president also signed Norton's bill to name the new U.S. Coast Guard headquarters the "Douglas A. Munro Coast Guard Headquarters Building," for the Coast Guard's only Medal of Honor recipient.
The Coast Guard headquarters construction was a job creator for D.C. and a bonus for D.C. businesses. Although federal construction cannot give preference to local residents for jobs, Norton's oversight and vigorous outreach resulted in D.C. residents comprising an average of 22 percent of workers on the project, even though D.C. has only 10 percent of the region's population. Norton will hold a job fair at the headquarters in 2014. At least 26 small businesses won contracts during headquarters construction, half of them District businesses.
Norton was successful in her request to the President to include $367,031,000 in his fiscal year 2014 for continued DHS construction budget on the St. Elizabeths West Campus. Also included in the President's fiscal year 2014 budget is Norton's request for $9.8 million for D.C. to jumpstart infrastructure improvements at the St. Elizabeths East Campus, owned by the city, but where another DHS building will be built, which will be an invaluable anchor for development on the D.C.-owned side of St. Elizabeths. The federal development has already brought significant benefits to D.C. On the strength of the DHS location on the West Campus, D.C. has secured commitments from major technology companies that want to be near the DHS headquarters. The District has established the Gateway Pavilion, a multi-purpose outdoor structure, to accommodate the 4,000 Coast Guard employees on site in advance of the mixed-use development that is likely to follow the 14,000 federal employees due to be housed in several buildings at St. Elizabeths.
Union Station Bus Deck
After bringing intercity buses inside Union Station in 2010, Norton cut the ribbon in September on a new Union Station bus deck. The new bus station takes residents out of the elements and makes Union Station truly intermodal.
Old Post Office Building
Norton's 15-year effort to get the General Services Administration (GSA) to redevelop the historic Old Post Office (OPO) building and annex bore fruit in June when GSA reached terms with the Trump Organization on a 60-year lease to redevelop and manage the iconic structure as a luxury hotel, culminating with September's lease signing. In 2008, with bipartisan support, Norton's Old Post Office Development Act passed, requiring the GSA to proceed with redevelopment. Norton is working with Ivanka Trump, who is the lead developer, on a win-win for the federal government and the District of Columbia, which will both benefit handsomely. The District will receive $100 million in tax revenue over a 10-year period, and the project will yield 700 construction jobs and 300 permanent jobs.
Stepping in to Keep D.C. Economic Development on Track
Continuing her efforts to ensure that GSA properties benefit the District as well as the federal government, Norton mounted an aggressive effort against underutilized GSA properties, which waste valuable space and taxpayer money. At a hearing of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's Government Operations Subcommittee she criticized GSA leaving vacant a large and reliable GSA property at 49 L St. SE, near M St. SE, where a Norton bill has led to the development of the Yards at Capitol Riverfront. After the hearing, GSA decided to sell the property, which pleased the nearby community, which had advanced its own sophisticated development proposal for the property. Norton also wrote GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini pressing for a specific plan to either use the valuable but long-vacant Webster School in downtown Washington for a new government tenant or to sell it. In response, the GSA committed to a plan of action for the property by early 2014. Norton has taken similar action with properties in the SW Ecodistrict and Federal Triangle South.
DC TAG: The City's Best Workforce Development Program
In spite of the economy, D.C. students have applied and qualified for the District of Columbia Tuition Assistance Grant (DCTAG) program in record numbers. DCTAG felt the bite of sequestration, but every student who qualified under the law received DCTAG funding. Fortunately, the President's fiscal year 2014 budget requested $35 million for DCTAG, a $5 million increase; every Republican and Democratic president since the Norton bill was enacted in 1999 has included it in his budget. DCTAG, which has doubled college attendance among students from the District, provides up to $10,000 annually toward the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition at public four-year colleges and universities, and up to $2,500 annually toward tuition at private colleges in the D.C. region, Historically Black Colleges and Universities nationwide, and two-year colleges.
D.C. Tax Incentives: Work Still to Do
To continue the stabilization and reinvigoration of the District, Norton in July introduced the District of Columbia Incentives for Business and Individual Investment Act to reauthorize federal tax incentives for D.C., including a $5,000 homebuyer tax credit, as well as a wage credit of up to $3,000 in the D.C. empowerment zone, a special capital gains rate, expanded tax-exempt bond financing, and additional expensing for equipment purchases. These incentives had transformative effects downtown and in communities throughout the city. Wards 7 and 8 benefitted significantly from the homebuyer tax credit, but only now would be fully able to take advantage of the business tax incentives. Norton has put a high priority on getting these tax incentives, which were left out of the most recent extension of tax incentives, ironically, because the incentives have had such a beneficial effect, reauthorized. Norton wants them reauthorized, however, so that neighborhoods like Anacostia can benefit from the business development likely to be spurred by the new headquarters of DHS, the first federal agency to be located east of the Anacostia. Norton will work with Republicans, who first proposed making D.C. an empowerment zone in their party platform in 1996, to get the incentives reauthorized.
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