Seven-Bill Appropriations Package Clears House

July 30, 2021 by TWN Staff
Seven-Bill Appropriations Package Clears House
The Capitol building, July 30, 2021. (Photo by Dan McCue)

WASHINGTON — The House passed a package of seven appropriations bills for 2022, funding the executive office of the president and general government functions of the executive branch, the judiciary, and several departments and agencies.

The vote was 219-208.

The seven-bill package, H.R. 4502, provides 2022 funding for the Agriculture, Labor, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, and Interior departments, as well as their related agencies.

“After the devastation of the pandemic and decades of disinvestment, the American economy caters increasingly to the wealthy and leaves the middle class, hard-working families, small businesses, and the vulnerable behind,” said Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.

“With these bills, we are reversing these trends and investing in the American people,” she continued. “Together, our transformative and historic funding increases will create good-paying jobs, grow opportunity for the middle class and small businesses and provide a lifeline for working families and the vulnerable. 

“I am particularly proud that the funding increases in the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education bill will help create a society that provides people with the help they so desperately need,” she said.

The funding breakdown is listed below:

The 2022 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies funding bill provides $253.8 billion, an increase of $55.2 billion – 28%– above 2021. With this increase, the legislation:

  • Creates and sustains good-paying American jobs through investments in job training, apprenticeship programs, and worker protection;
  • Grows opportunity with transformative investments in education, including record funding for high-poverty schools and students with disabilities, and strong increases for programs that expand access to post-secondary education;
  • Supports middle class and working families with increased funding for child care and development programs, Head Start, and preschool development grants;
  • Strengthens lifesaving biomedical research with increased funding for the National Institutes of Health, including funding to establish the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health;
  • Bolsters public health infrastructure with more resources for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and for states and local governments to strengthen infrastructure and capacity;
  • Addresses our nation’s most urgent health crises, including maternal health, mental health, gun violence, and substance misuse, while making strides to reduce persistent and unacceptable health disparities;
  • Advances equal treatment for women by increasing funding for the range of health services, including family planning, covered by Title X and repealing the discriminatory Hyde Amendment.

The 2022 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies funding bill provides discretionary funding of $26.55 billion – a critical increase of $2.851 billion, 12% – above 2021. In total, the bill includes $196.7 billion for both discretionary programs funded on an annual basis and mandatory programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The legislation:

  • Tackles hunger and nutrition insecurity by expanding access to fruits and vegetables to 6.4 million people through WIC and ensuring 45 million people in SNAP-eligible families get the benefits they need. The bill also invests in the health of America’s kids through Child Nutrition programs, like school meals – which are now the healthiest source of food consumed in the United States;
  • Grows opportunity and lifts up rural communities by increasing funding for rural broadband, connecting more communities to the internet through a program that last year got more than 100,000 people connected to the 21st century economy;
  • Rebuilds our public health and consumer safety infrastructure with increased funding to address maternal and infant nutrition, including resources for the ‘Closer to Zero’ initiative to reduce exposure to toxic elements in babies’ and young children’s food, emerging food-related chemical and toxicological issues, drug safety oversight, as well as providing additional resources for in-person inspections of the two largest international drug manufacturing countries, and drug and device supply chain monitoring and surveillance.
  • The bill also invests in our public health infrastructure by modernizing FDA’s data infrastructure to better ensure the safety and security of the food and medical supply chain.
  • Confronts the climate crisis with $347.4 million across USDA to address the impacts of climate change. These investments are aimed to tackle the climate crisis in farming and rural communities and include research to monitor, measure, and mitigate climate change, accelerate climate smart agriculture practices, reduce greenhouse gases, and advance clean energy technologies.
  • The bill provides important investments to ensure equitable participation in USDA programs. In total, the bill provides more funding than the request to advance racial justice, including increases for extension, research, and capacity grants at our 1890 land grants, 1994 land grants, and Hispanic serving institutions to help strengthen the pipeline for the future of agriculture. 
  • It also provides funding to improve outreach and program access to historically underserved communities and provides a healthy increase for USDA’s Office of Civil Rights above the request.

The 2022 Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies funding bill provides $53.226 billion, an increase of $1.474 billion above 2021. The legislation:

  • Creates tens of thousands of good-paying jobs with a focus on deploying clean energy technologies and the green jobs of tomorrow in communities across the country;
  • Confronts the climate crisis with more than $14 billion of transformative investments in clean energy and science, which will help develop clean, affordable, and secure American energy;
  • Rebuilds our nation’s water infrastructure, critical to protecting communities from more frequent and severe storms and addressing the worsening drought.

The 2022 Financial Services and General Government funding bill includes $29.1 billion, an increase of $4.8 billion over 2021. The legislation:

  • Assists small businesses and entrepreneurs through the Small Business Administration and Community Development Financial Institutions;
  • Protects our democracy with Election Security Grants to ensure the integrity and safety of our elections;
  • Rebuilds the Internal Revenue Service to finally crack down on big corporations and the wealthy and to provide better customer service to working families navigating the tax system;
  • Supports working and middle-class families by increasing funding for consumer protection activities at the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Federal Trade Commission;
  • Confronts the climate crisis by providing funding to start the transition of the Federal vehicle fleet to electric and zero emission vehicles.

The 2022 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies funding bill includes $43.4 billion in regular appropriations, an increase of $7.3 billion – 20.2% – above 2021. There is also an additional $2.45 billion of funding for fire suppression. The legislation:

  • Creates good-paying American jobs through investments in renewable energy development, including offshore wind, and a national initiative to reclaim abandoned mines and cap orphan oil and gas wells;
  • Confronts the climate crisis by expanding environmental enforcement efforts, creating a Civilian Climate Corps, and launching a renewed focus on land and water conservation;
  • Supports Native American families by investing in a strong and resilient Indian Country, including through education and health care programs;
  • Dramatically expands environmental justice efforts to address unacceptable pollution in communities of color;
  • Honors the federal government’s responsibilities to Native Americans.

The 2022 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies funding bill provides $279.9 billion, an increase of $28.1 billion – more than 10 % – above 2021. Of this amount, discretionary funding for programs such as veterans’ health care and military construction totals $124.5 billion, an increase of $11.4 billion above 2021. The legislation:

  • Supports our veterans with investments in health care, including targeted investments that advance women’s health, mental health, and homelessness assistance;
  • Rebuilds our infrastructure with strong investments to construct critical facilities on military installations including family housing and child development centers, and build, repair, and retrofit Veterans Affairs facilities;
  • Protects our national security with investments to respond to the challenges posed by Russian and Chinese aggression;
  • Confronts the climate crisis with increased climate change and resiliency funding to help military installations adapt to rising sea levels and worsening natural disasters.

The 2022 Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies funding bill provides funding of $84.1 billion, an increase of $8.7 billion – more than 11% – above 2021. This includes an increase of $6.8 billion for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and $1.9 billion for the Department of Transportation. In total, the bill provides $162.6 billion in budgetary resources, an increase of $25.9 billion above 2021. The legislation:

  • Creates tens of thousands of good-paying American jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure with significant investments in airports, highways, transit, passenger rail, and port systems;
  • Grows opportunity through homeownership and rental assistance, including more than 125,000 new housing vouchers targeted to individuals and families experiencing or at risk of homelessness and over 4,000 new units for seniors and persons with disabilities;
  • Supports the vulnerable with public housing safety, maintenance and improvement investments, such as the remediation of lead paint and radon and installation of energy and water efficient systems;
  • Promotes safe transportation and housing with a skilled and growing workforce to conduct inspections, mitigate hazards, and study emerging threats and innovative solutions;
  • Reduces emissions, increases resiliency, and addresses historical inequities in transportation and housing programs through targeted grants and investments.

Text and summaries of the legislation, as well as Committee reports accompanying each bill, are available here. Information on amendments considered on the Floor is here.

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