Tim Ryan statement at full committee markup of FY 2019 Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill

May 8, 2018
Press Release

Thank you, Chairman Yoder.

As you noted, the bill before us contains $3.81 billion, excluding the $1.07 billion requested by the Senate. The agencies in the Leg Branch bill almost all receive what they requested after taking into account their funding in the FY2018 omnibus.

With $456.4 million for the Capitol Police and $18.8 million for the House Sergeant at Arms, we’re looking after the security needs of Members, staff, and visitors both here in Washington and at our district offices at home.

The bill’s $5.4 million for the Office of Compliance and $147.6 million for the House Chief Administrative Officer will support our response to the sexual harassment that has been pervasive since longer than any of us have been Members of Congress, but has only recently become a national scandal.

The $642 million for the Architect of the Capitol will help continue to reduce our backlog of deferred maintenance.

The $578.9 million for the Government Accountability Office will bring the Federal government’s premier auditor and watchdog back up to the 3,100 full-time equivalent staff that it needs to root out waste, fraud and abuse.

Those are just some of the worthwhile uses to which we’re putting taxpayer dollars in the Legislative Branch appropriations bill.

Chairman Yoder has put together a fair bill that will help the first branch of government carry out its mission of writing our nation’s laws in the coming fiscal year. I’d like to thank him for the time and effort he’s put into assembling this bill.

And of course I’d like to thank Ranking Member Lowey and Chairman Frelinghuysen for their support and leadership.

I’m also grateful for all the hard work of Subcommittee Clerk Jenny Panone and Tim Monahan from the majority staff, Joe Eannello from Chairman Yoder’s office, Adam Berg on the minority staff, and Anne Sokolov and Ryan Keating from my office. For a second year in a row, they have put in a lot of hours and helped the Chairman and me get to this point.

As strong as this bill is, I can’t help but repeat what I said at this same meeting last year about the bigger picture, because we’re in almost the exact same position again. Even a bill like this one that’s worthy of our support should be part of a coherent budget strategy, and right now it is not.

We already know there’s a fixed amount of money available to the 12 subcommittees. Instead of laying out the allocations for all 12 subcommittees like we’re supposed to, we’re going to start marking up bills and figure out later whether there’s still enough money for the ones that come at the end. Will we have to shortchange our response to the opioid epidemic because we gave some extra to the Copyright Office today? Are we going to have to cut the Environmental Protection Agency because we’re spending $21 million renovating a cooling tower down the street? We don’t know. We’re unable to make those sorts of informed decisions because we haven’t seen the plan.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to work. It’s dysfunctional.

Luckily the dysfunction in the Congress under this majority has not kept the Legislative Branch Subcommittee from doing its job. I support this bill, I look forward to discussing a few amendments that will hopefully make it even better, and I yield back.

115th Congress