Washington, D.C. - Despite serious reservations with several provisions in the $820 billion fiscal year 2004 omnibus spending bill, U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) voted in favor of the conference report on H.R. 2673, the Omnibus Appropriations Act for FY 2004. The House of Representatives passed the conference report on H.R. 2673 last year. The Senate adopted the measure by a 65 to 28 vote, clearing the omnibus legislation for the President's signature.
Senator Akaka supported efforts over the past two months to fix flaws in H.R. 2673 by reinstating a Senate-passed provision to prohibit the Bush Administration's plan to abolish overtime for eight million workers; reinstating a Senate-passed provision related to the Federal Communications Commission and media ownership; striking House language blocking the implementation of country-of-origin labeling; striking a provision that weakens background check requirements of the Brady bill; striking a provision to impose a voucher system on the Washington, D.C., public school system; striking a provision to allow the contracting out of over 400,000 federal jobs; and striking provisions imposing arbitrary across-the-board cuts to education, Head Start, veterans' health care, highway construction, and other non-defense appropriations.
"Despite these serious concerns about the package, holding up its passage any further would have jeopardized new or increased funding under the bill for important programs such as for Global HIV/AIDS, transportation projects, mentoring, education, and social service programs," Akaka noted. "This was particularly clear in the face of a threat from the Senate Majority Leader that the only other alternative would be to continue current programs at FY03 levels. Because the House had already acted to pass the conference report, major fixes would have taken an inordinate amount of time, so my colleagues and I resolved instead to use other legislative vehicles to pass any remedies and other important priorities. Further, through collaborative efforts led by Senator Daniel Inouye, who is a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, the conference report contains $485 million in projects and programmatic funding for Hawaii. Balancing all of these reasons, I voted to accept the conference report."
The conference report includes funding for a number programs of critical importance to Hawaii that Senator Akaka strongly supports, including the Office of Native Hawaiian Relations, the Excellence in Economic Education Act, mentoring programs in the Education and Health and Human Services Departments, Native Hawaiian Education Act programs, research to boost the global competitiveness of domestic aquaculture, and full funding for the first phase of three phases for the Juvenile Justice Information System.
