House Passes Three-Bill Minibus Appropriations Package

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, November 17, 2011

CONTACT: ALANA JUTEAU
(202) 225-7163

House Passes Three-Bill Minibus Appropriations Package
Funds Matsui Priorities of COPS, WIC Programs

This evening, Congresswoman Matsui (D-Sacramento) voted to pass a three-bill minibus appropriations package for fiscal year 2012. H.R. 2112 provides for appropriations for Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development (T-HUD). The legislation is the first full-year spending measure to pass through Congress this year.

After operating without a real budget through fiscal year 2011, I am glad that we were finally able to pass three appropriations bills today, said Congresswoman Matsui. While it is simply not possible to give every priority the highest funding level in our austere budget environment, I believe that many important federal programs were given their due and that this minibus package will begin to give several of our departments the ability to move forward on plans and priorities. In order to create new jobs and recover our economy, it is absolutely vital that we pass a budget this year that gives both the public and private sectors the certainty they need.

H.R. 2112 provides nearly $128 billion in discretionary spending, broken into $19.8 billion for Agriculture, $52.7 billion for CJS, and $55.6 billion for T-HUD. The minibus is operating under the budget constrains put in place by the debt deal passed earlier this summer. Out of the three bills, T-HUD is the only to see an increase in funding over fiscal year 2011 levels with a rise of $183 million.

Congresswoman Matsui has actively advocated for funding for several important programs most notably the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program. Earlier this month, Congresswoman Matsui sent a letter to the conference committee requesting that the COPS program, which was zeroed out in the House version of the CJS bill, would receive $231.5 million. The conference agreement provided $200 million for COPS.

COPS is a critical program for so many communities across our nation, added Matsui. I am pleased that the bill we passed today provides $200 million for this program, as opposed to not being funded at any level in the earlier House-passed version, and I will continue fighting to ensure that COPS receives adequate funding in the future. In Sacramento, we were able to keep or hire 50 first responders this year alone thanks to a COPS grant. This is a matter of both public safety and job creation neither of which can be ignored.

Congresswoman Matsui also joined several of her colleagues in signing onto a letter to the conference committee requesting that the WIC program be adequately funded in the final compromise. The House-passed FY 2012 Agriculture Appropriations bill made a $733 million cut to the WIC program that would have resulted in the loss of benefits for hundreds of thousands of low-income women and children next year. At the time, Congresswoman Matsui spoke out in opposition to the massive cuts to this program. In the final bill, the WIC program is funded at over $6.6 billion roughly $570 million above the House-passed level and $36 million above the Senate-passed level.

Since the minibus package only combines three appropriations bills, the legislation also contained a provision to fund the entire federal government through December 16, 2011. The previous stopgap continuing resolution to fund the government expires at midnight on Friday, November 18th. There are currently plans in the work to move a second fiscal 2012 omnibus package that contains the remaining appropriations bills.

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