Representative C.W. Bill Young

Congressman Bill Young (R-Indian Shores) is serving his 20th term in Congress as a representative of the Tenth Congressional District of Florida. He is the senior member of the Florida congressional delegation and is the senior Republican in the entire Congress  House and Senate. When he completes his current term in office, he will have served 50 years in public office (10 in the Florida State Senate and 40 in the United States Congress). With the swearing in of Barack Obama as President, Congressman Young will have served with eight Presidents of the United States.

A nine-year veteran of the Army National Guard, and six more as a reservist, Young is nationally known for his expertise on defense and security issues. He currently serves as Ranking Republican Member on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, which he chaired from 1995-1998 and 2005-2006. He is also a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and the Appropriations Select Intelligence Oversight Panel.

Chairman Young's official portrait, dedicated to his tenure as Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations.  Every Chairman of the Appropriations Committee since the 1860s has had his portrait hung in the Capitol commemorating his service.

From 1999-2005, Congressman Young served as Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, overseeing the entire federal discretionary budget. In addition to his previous tenure as Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, Young has also served as a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Throughout his service on the Appropriations Committee, Young has been dedicated to improving the quality of life of the men and women who serve and who have served in the military. He regularly meets with enlisted personnel and officers to assess their needs, and as a result, Congress has invested in improved base housing, better medical care, increased pay, and more modern equipment for the military.

Young has also been a leading advocate for increased biomedical research. During his Chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee, he successfully led the effort in Congress to double federal medical research funding over five years. He has likewise led the fight for federal funding for a variety of medical issues, including an increased immunization rate for preschoolers, improved public health programs nationwide, and cures for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Diseases.

In 1986, Young was instrumental in creating a national registry for bone marrow donors. Now named the "C.W. Bill Young Marrow Donor Recruitment and Research Program" in his honor, the registry lists more than seven million volunteer donors for patients with leukemia and other life-threatening diseases and has served as a model for similar programs throughout the world. It has provided the living gift of life to more than 30,000 individuals and facilitates an average of 10 bone marrow transplants every day of the year.

Throughout his career of public service, Young has been a strong advocate for the needs of Pinellas County. Among other issues, he has worked to ease congestion along U.S. Highway 19; attract high-tech jobs to St. Petersburg; improve health care for low-income children and families; protect neighboring MacDill Air Force Base; build a state of the art medical center for veterans at Bay Pines; ensure a steady supply of water for the Tampa Bay area; and offset the effects of erosion on the area's beaches.

Young was born in Harmarville, Pennsylvania, and moved to Pinellas County at the age of 15. Congressman Young and his wife Beverly have three adult sons, Rob, Billy, and Patrick.

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