WASHINGTON - Today, Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) voted to pass the Fiscal Year 2023 omnibus appropriations package. The bill included key legislative priorities championed by Blunt Rochester in addition to nearly $100 million for community projects throughout the state of Delaware. Blunt Rochester issued the following statement.
“I was proud to join a bipartisan coalition of my colleagues in voting to accomplish one of our core responsibilities of funding the government. Throughout the 117th Congress, working with Democratic Leadership and President Biden, we’ve been able to authorize a great many programs that help secure the health, economic competitiveness, and quality of life for Americans across the country. With the passage of today’s spending bill, we will now be able to see the full potential of those laws realized.
“I’m also particularly pleased to see a number of provisions that I’ve championed throughout this Congress be included in today’s final package, including measures that will bolster our nursing workforce, improve crisis and behavioral health care, and ensure that our Environmental Justice communities are invested in and prioritized.
“Finally, I’m proud to have once again worked with Senators Carper & Coons to secure nearly $100 million in community projects throughout our state. Those projects are the product of a comprehensive and transparent process that gets federal dollars to the parts of our state with the greatest demonstrated need, broad-based community support, and greatest impact.”
Key provisions championed by Blunt Rochester included in the FY23 omnibus include:
- Helping reinforce Delaware’s nursing workforce: The bill includes the Technical Reset to Advance the Instruction of Nurses (TRAIN) Act, introduced by Blunt Rochester, which would ensure hospital-based nursing schools that received funding support from CMS in the past can keep those resources and put them toward training the next generation of nurses without the threat of recoupment. Due to a technical error in how CMS administered this program in the past, many hospital-based nursing schools, including Beebe Healthcare’s Margaret H. Rollins School of Nursing, may be required to send millions of dollars back to CMS. Specifically, the TRAIN Act would prohibit CMS from recouping overpayments made in past years to hospital-based programs when CMS failed to make technical annual updates to the program, directly benefitting Beebe.
- Ensuring equity in Alzheimer’s research: The bill includes the ENACT Act, introduced by Blunt Rochester, which would increase the participation of underrepresented populations in Alzheimer’s and other dementia clinical trials by expanding education and outreach to these populations, encouraging the diversity of clinical trial staff, and reducing participation burden and barriers, among other priorities.
- Investing in our Environmental Justice Communities: This bill provides an additional $3,000,000 for the Agency to implement the needs assessment for nationwide rural and urban low-income community water assistance authorized in section 50108 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The authorization for the funding comes from Blunt Rochester’s Low-Income Water Customer Assistance Programs Act. The bill also ensures that Delaware’s fenceline communities have prioritized air monitoring systems.
- Keeping Delaware communities safe: This bill includes over $18 million for Youth Violence Prevention Grants, $50 million for Community Violence Intervention and Prevention, and over $700 million in grants to local law enforcement agencies.
- Honoring Delaware’s Veterans: The bill includes over $23 million in infrastructure improvements for the Wilmington Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
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