Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chair, last year, Congress passed an updated formula for the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (the HOPWA program). The change was necessary to ensure the program better reflected how the HIV/AIDS epidemic is changing in this country.

However, at the current HOPWA funding levels, the new formula leaves several jurisdictions, including New York City and Miami, at risk of losing funding for this important program.

In a program as efficient as HOPWA, when grantees lose funding, people living with AIDS lose their housing. Research clearly demonstrates that housing instability leads to worse health outcomes for those living with HIV/AIDS, and these potential cuts could have a devastating impact on these patients and their families. The new formula will only be effective in addressing the AIDS housing crisis if we maintain adequate funding levels.

My amendment increases funding for HOPWA by $19 million, ensuring that, under the new formula, no jurisdiction loses funding in Fiscal Year 2018. The amendment is fully offset through the HUD Information Technology Fund.

I thank Chairman Diaz-Balart and Ranking Member Price for their long-standing support of HOPWA and for accepting this important amendment to protect people living with AIDS and their families. I look forward to continuing our work on HOPWA in the future. I also speak for all New Yorkers in lending our support to Chairman Diaz-Balart and his district in the face of Hurricane Irma, just as they stood with us during Superstorm Sandy.

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Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment, which would eliminate funding for the Gateway Project.

The Gateway Project, which includes work on the Portal Bridge and construction of a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River, is widely recognized as one of the highest priority transportation projects in the country.

We should have built new tunnels and expanded capacity on the Northeast Corridor long ago, but the damage to the existing tunnels caused by Superstorm Sandy has brought a new urgency to the situation.

If those tunnels were to go down, as they certainly will in the next 10 years without the Gateway Project, there would be no rail service between New York and New Jersey, massively disrupting transportation all along the Northeast Corridor from Washington to Boston. Twenty percent of the economy of the country would be disrupted.

This amendment cuts funding for Gateway and eliminates almost $500 million from the bill completely, sending it to the spending reduction account. It does not direct that funding to other infrastructure projects. It does not restore TIGER funding. It reduces national infrastructure spending when we should be increasing it.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to reject this extremely shortsighted and punitive measure.

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