Eleanor Holmes Norton: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for bringing this bill to the floor. I support the mission and work of…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for bringing this bill to the floor. I support the mission and work of the Foundation of the Federal Bar Association. I support passage of H.R. 1663, which would give the foundation more operational flexibility, as I did when the House passed a similar version last Congress. However, I would be remiss if I did not note my concern with section 6 of this bill. Federal law requires the foundation's principal office to be in the District of Columbia. Section 6 would amend that requirement and allow the foundation to have its principal office at any location in the United States decided by its board of directors and specified by its bylaws. Currently, the foundation's principal office is in Arlington, Virginia, in violation of Federal law. I am speaking on this bill not to oppose it but to make a larger point about the location of Federal agencies. While the foundation is a federally chartered corporation and operates independently of the Federal Government, H.R. 1663 comes to the floor at a time when the Trump administration and many Members of Congress, among them my Republican colleagues, are working to relocate Federal agencies outside the national capital region. Recently, Senators Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn introduced a bill that would relocate most agencies outside of the Nation's Capital and the national capital region.…”