Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. COSTA. Madam Chair, I rise today to offer an amendment to H.R. 4660. This amendment would increase the cap on the Crime Victims Fund to $1 billion, providing needed funding for victims, while maintaining the stability of the fund for years to come.

Since 1984, the Victims of Crime Act has provided Federal grants to provide essential and, oftentimes, lifesaving services for victims of crimes across America.

The Crime Victims Fund is not financed--let's be clear about this--by taxpayer dollars, but by fines, forfeitures, and other penalties paid by Federal criminal offenders who have been convicted.

By statute, the fund is dedicated to solely supporting victims' services. Because these nontax dollars have already been collected and deposited into the fund, raising the cap does not add to the deficit or to the debt.

Right now, the Crime Victims Fund has more than $10 billion sitting in the account waiting to reach the hands of our Nation's victims of crime. However, budgetary rules that make no sense whatsoever, in my opinion, are preventing this critical fund from serving our Nation's crime victims.

The underlying bill caps the Crime Victims Fund to $770 million,--that is what is in the bill--leaving billions of dollars for the government to use to offset for other Federal spending. This is wrong. It is immoral. It is what our taxpayers don't like about the system here in Washington.

Thankfully, there is a solution. Congressman Judge Poe--my good friend--and I have introduced legislation, H.R. 1624, the Crime Victims Fund Preservation Act, which would create a lockbox for the fund. Because the fund contains no taxpayer dollars, it should not be considered as a part of the budget.

Without this legislation, Congress will continue to place artificially low caps on the fund, which only denies and delays necessary services for victims of crime.

Congressman Poe and I intend to withdraw the amendment with the recognition we must fix this problem going forward.

I would like to thank Chairman Wolf and Ranking Member Fattah for your good work on this bill, and I would hope that Judge Poe and I could work with you and your staff to fix the rules that prevent this funding from reaching crime victims.

I yield the balance of my time to the Congressman from Texas, Judge Ted Poe, my good friend and cochair of the Victims' Rights Caucus.

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Mr. COSTA. Madam Chair, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas, my good friend and cochair of the Victims' Rights Caucus. I could not have said it any better. Common sense suggests that we fix this problem.

I thank the chairman and the ranking member.

Madam Chair, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment, and I hope we can work on this in the future.

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