Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2006

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I first congratulate Chairman Allard for successfully crafting his first Legislative branch appropriations bill. It has been a pleasure working through this process with him and I thank him for his leadership. He has done an exceptional job.

The Fiscal Year 2006 Legislative branch appropriations bill we are considering today is comprehensive, thorough, and fair. I want to thank Chairman Cochran for providing us with an allocation which has allowed us to adequately fund the agencies that support the Legislative branch, such as the Capitol Police, the Government Accountability Office, the Library of Congress, and the Architect of the Capitol.

The bill we are presenting today provides funding to support the Capitol Police at the current staff level of 1,592 officers and 411 civilian staff, along with anticipated cost-of-living adjustments and estimated overtime requirements. The bill also provides funding for 14 new officers for the Capitol Visitor Center. I believe it is critical that we provide adequate funding to support the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect us every day. Our bill does that.

The House Legislative branch bill made some painfully deep cuts to some of our support agencies, particularly the Capitol Police, so we will have a real challenge to face during conference.

This bill provides funding to the Architect of the Capitol to complete construction of the Capitol Visitor Center. I thank Chairman Allard for his diligence in holding monthly hearings to monitor the progress of the CVC. These hearings have been very useful and informative to the members of the subcommittee and have allowed us to make the best of a very challenging situation.

I thank Chairman Allard for including funding for several projects which are very important to the State of Illinois--the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and the Adventures of the American Mind. I am also happy to note that a legislative provision is included in this bill which provides permanent authorization for a program within the Library of Congress, the Digital Collections into School Curricula Act of 2005, which is patterned after the Adventures of the American Mind program.

Finally, I thank Carrie Apostolou, Fred Pagan, and Christen Taylor of the majority staff, and Terry Sauvain, Drew Willison, and Nancy Olkewicz of the minority staff for their help on this bill.

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