Lowey statement at subcommittee markup of FY 2018 Transportation, HUD, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill

July 11, 2017
Press Release

Thank you, Chairman Diaz-Balart, Ranking Member Price, and Chairman Frelinghuysen for your work on this bill.

Today, we are marking up our eighth appropriations bill at subcommittee level.  However, more than nine months into the fiscal year, the majority continues to flounder in passing a budget resolution, and the Committee has only just released its full slate of 302(b) allocations. This is a highly irresponsible way to operate and a perversion of regular order.

There are some good parts of the bill before us, including $500 million for the Federal-State Partnership for State of Good Repair, which would directly help the Gateway Project that is so important for my constituents in New York and the economy of the Northeast region and nation as a whole.

However, as Mr. Price mentioned, problematic cuts make it difficult to support this bill. For instance, eliminating TIGER, and drastically cutting Capital Investment Grants, especially with a crisis on the rails for commuters and train travelers in the New York metro area, represent a failure to maintain transportation and infrastructure that, in some cases, is crumbling before our eyes. Likewise, by cutting Community Development Block Grants, HOME investment partnerships, and even Lead Hazard Control, this bill continues to shift the burden on to working families and the most vulnerable among us. 

But the primary obstacle in our entire process is the majority’s failure to work with Democrats to develop reasonable topline spending levels to make possible the enactment of responsible appropriations law. 

Just like every year, Democratic votes will be needed to enact appropriations law, so I hope we will soon start to work together.

115th Congress