WASHINGTON, DC—The US Senate has proposed setting aside $250.5 million in its 2015 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security's Southeast D.C. consolidation project.
The appropriation is less than the $323 million sought by President Barack Obama and could be further cut as the House and the Senate looks to reconcile their respective budgetary proposals. The appropriation is viewed as a victory for those who support the multiyear, multibillion-dollar initiative to relocate all of DHS's agencies onto the St. Elizabeths campus.
"The fact that the Senate appropriations bill provides almost the entirety of the President's budget request shows that the DHS construction is too far along to stop now that the infrastructure is already in the ground, in addition to the cost-savings inherent in consolidating disparate DHS agencies," says Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton.
Norton believes the federal government has an obligation to fund the $4.5-billion project because it has already invested $1.5 billion in the venture. See story in the Washington Business Journal.
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