As a Member of the House Committee on Appropriations, I serve on three Subcommittees in the 111th Congress. These include the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, the Financial Services and General Government, and the State and Foreign Operations Subcommittees.
As you may know, Congress annually considers several appropriations measures, which provide funding for numerous activities including national defense, education, and homeland security, as well as general government operations. Appropriations measures are under the jurisdiction of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. These measures provide only about 40% of total federal spending for a fiscal year. The House and Senate legislative committees control the rest.
There are three types of appropriations measures. Regular appropriations bills provide most of the funding that is provided in all appropriations measures for a fiscal year, and must be enacted by October 1 of each year. If regular bills are not enacted by the deadline, Congress adopts continuing resolutions to continue funding generally until regular bills are enacted. Supplemental appropriations bills provide additional appropriations and are typically considered during a fiscal year.
Setting policy and project priorities are an essential legislative responsibility. As you know, the U.S. Constitution entrusts Congress to direct all federal funding. All congressionally directed funding requests that I submit are carefully reviewed and vetted, transparently submitted to the appropriate committee, publicly vetted by congressional committees, and in compliance with legislative rules.
When properly considered through both the congressional authorization and appropriations processes, congressionally directed funding requests are an important legislative tool essential to a representative form of government. This process allows representatives accountable to those who sent them to Washington to identify critical and important local and state funding needs. Without this process, unelected bureaucrats would be free to designate critical projects across the nation without taking into account the needs and requirements as identified by the directly elected representatives of the people. These decisions would be made without public hearings, congressional oversight or consultation.
In exercising this important legislative responsibility, I prioritize key transportation, infrastructure, economic development, community improvement and other important needs of the cities and communities in the 4th District. Below please a complete list of the congressionally directed funding requests that I have vetted and submitted for consideration for funding in fiscal year 2010.