Today, Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) joined House Democrats and Republicans in voting 316-113 to pass the FY 2016 Omnibus Appropriations bill. This measure funds the government for Fiscal Year 2016. The omnibus bill was part of a bipartisan deal that included a tax extenders bill passed yesterday with a strong bipartisan vote of 318-109.
“Today I joined my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote for the Omnibus to avert a disastrous government shutdown and to make the investments we need to help our families succeed and grow our economy. While the bill is not perfect, it is a bipartisan compromise that makes strong investments in a wide range of critical programs with increased funding for NIH, Head Start, Pell Grants, job-training, state and local law enforcement, the McGovern-Dole international school feeding program, and many others.
“One of the most important victories for working families in the bipartisan deal this week was the provisions in the tax extenders bill that make permanent the improvements to the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit that were passed in 2009 as part of the Recovery Act. As a result, these improvements are expected to lift about 16 million people, including about 8 million children, out of poverty or closer to rising above the poverty line. College affordability is a big priority for me and I am glad that we also made permanent the recent improvement to the American Opportunity Tax Credit to help millions of low- and middle-income families pay for college each year.
“Additionally, the Omnibus includes provisions to reauthorize the vital Land and Water Conservation Fund for three years. The LWCF is one of our country’s most successful outdoor recreation and conservation programs. Over the last 50 years, it has helped to protect national parks and forests, farms and ranches, fish and wildlife refuges, trails, and state and local parks in Massachusetts and across the country.
“Following the historic international climate agreement reached in Paris last weekend, I am also pleased that this deal will extend tax incentives for investments in wind and solar energy, helping to drive significant reductions in carbon pollution and other dangerous air pollutants and provide certainty for investments in clean energy.
“With any bipartisan legislation, it is essential that both parties are able come to the table to find compromise and reach a deal. While the Omnibus and tax extenders bills are not perfect, the investments they make will put us in a strong position to continue our work with states and businesses to grow the economy and help all of our families succeed. Our work is far from finished, but this is an important step forward and I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to continue this progress in the new year.”
Background on Omnibus Bill
The bill’s investments in priorities include the following:
- Renewable Energy: Provides a major boost to renewable energy by extending the wind Production Tax Credit for five years (through 2019), and extending the solar Investment Tax Credit for five years (through 2021), while phasing both credits down somewhat over time. Extending the solar tax credit is estimated to create 61,000 jobs in 2017 alone. It is also estimated that the wind industry will grow to over 100,000 jobs over four years with the renewed wind tax credit.
- Energy Efficiency and Clean Energy R&D: Provides an 8 percent increase over 2015 for R&D activities in the pursuit of new clean energy and energy efficiency technologies.
- Overall Education: The bill restores the $2.5 billion cut in education that the GOP had proposed and also makes critical additional investments of $1.4 billion above 2015, in such areas as Title I that serves 24 million at-risk students.
- Early Learning: Investing in Head Start produces results – and this bill invests nearly $400 million more than the House GOP bill and nearly $600 million more than 2015 in this vital initiative. The bill also provides $250 million for Preschool Development Grants, assisting 18 states across the country.
- Medical Research: Medical research at NIH has been underfunded for the last several years. This bill provides $900 million more than the House GOP bill and $2 billion more than 2015 for this life-saving research.
- Infrastructure: The popular TIGER grants are being used across the country to repair infrastructure and contribute to economic growth. The House GOP bill had slashed TIGER grants by 80 percent, killing jobs, but this bill restores the funding to the 2015 level of $500 million.
- Law Enforcement: The bill provides $187 million for COPS hiring grants, $7 million above the 2015 level and $187 million above the House GOP bill, which had eliminated the hiring grants. The bill also provides $80 million for the Community Policing Initiative, including $22.5 million for body-worn cameras and $15 million for Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation grants, an increase over the House bill.
The measure also does not include numerous GOP ideological riders that would have had damaging impacts on America’s women, consumers, workers, and children. The damaging GOP “poison pill” riders that were removed from the final bill include:
- GOP riders that would have limited women’s access to the full range of comprehensive health care services, including by defunding Planned Parenthood.
- GOP riders that would have gutted the Dodd-Frank provisions that hold big Wall Street banks accountable.
- GOP riders that would have undermined the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act, jeopardizing the health of our children and working families.
- GOP riders that would have blocked moving forward on addressing climate change and reducing damaging carbon emissions.
- GOP riders that would have blocked protections that allow workers to form unions.
Finally, the Omnibus includes several other important provisions:
- Reauthorizes the key James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, making the Health Program permanent and reauthorizing the Victims Compensation Fund for five years;
- Delays the so-called “Cadillac” tax, a tax on employer-provided health plans worth over a certain threshold, for two years – from 2018 to 2020;
- Includes the provisions of the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act, which addresses issues raised by the terrorist attacks in Paris with reforms to the program; and
- Reauthorizes the Land and Conservation Fund, which is one of our country’s most successful outdoor recreation and conservation programs and which Republicans allowed to expire on September 30.
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