Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act

Floor Speech

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Madam Chair, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Madam Chair, this amendment that I am offering today would repurpose
just 1 percent of the funding for the Federal prison system and restore
funding for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Madam Chair, the underlying bill zeros out both title II formula
grants and title V discretionary grants for prevention and early
intervention programs, which were funded last year at approximately $70
million. To ensure that our State juvenile justice systems are not
irreparably damaged, this amendment would take just 1 percent away from
our Federal prison systems, approximately $70 million, to maintain our
commitment to prevention and early intervention.

The prison system can take steps to deal with this reduction by
limiting duplicate prosecutions or pursuing evidence-based alternatives
to incarceration, particularly for first-time offenders. These
practices not only will save money, but will also improve public
safety.

We have a choice, Madam Chair. We can invest in prisons after the
fact, or we can invest in prevention and early intervention before the
fact and eliminate what the Children's Defense Fund calls the Cradle to
Prison Pipeline.

Madam Chair, at this point, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Cardenas).

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Madam Chairman, I yield myself the balance of
my time.

I thank the gentleman for allowing us to debate because I understand
the point of order will be sustained.

There will be other opportunities during the legislative process, as
the ranking member of the subcommittee has indicated, to deal with this
issue.

The way the bill has been drafted, it was impossible to get an
amendment in order, but there will be other possibilities later on in
the process, and I would hope the chair and the ranking member will
work effectively to make sure that we deal with the choice that we
have, whether we are going to just put money away for young people to
get in trouble and then deal with it or we can deal with it in advance
with prevention and early intervention. This is what this amendment
would do.

Madam Chair, if the gentleman is going to assert his point of order,
I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment and deal with the
issue later on in the process.

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