Issue Position: More Revenue and Land for the District

Issue Position

Norton's role as a subcommittee chair became particularly visible in the city this year when she got a prefabricated Opportunities Center built at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) headquarters construction site on the Ward 8 St. Elizabeths campus to provide easy access for residents to jobs and small business opportunities. The DHS headquarters construction, the largest economic development project in the nation today, is still in the start-up period but is meeting the outreach goals set for jobs and small business opportunities for D.C. residents.

Norton got stimulus funds not only for the development of the new DHS headquarters, but also for 15 major projects to renovate federal buildings here, which also are in the start-up phase. Separately, she got more stimulus funds for the District government than seven states received, which continue to be spent for city functions and infrastructure.

The new Yards Park, along the Anacostia River near Nationals Park, was built on federal land that a Norton bill converted to benefit the District. In addition, the District met the conditions in Norton's 2006 land transfer bill to get the deed to Hill East, which will be a mixed-use development on the expansive grounds of the old D.C. General Hospital. She got the National Park Service to transfer land at Fort Dupont for a new baseball academy and to approve a federal tax credit necessary to begin work to convert the Old Naval Hospital in Capitol Hill to a community center. Norton's subcommittee hearings ensured federal funding to the District for last winter's record snowstorm.

As the healthcare bill was developing, Norton devoted much of her attention to ensuring that the $50 million D.C. now spends on healthcare for those who do not qualify for Medicaid would be transferred from local taxpayers to the federal government.

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