Rodney Frelinghuysen: “I rise in support of this House Joint Resolution 2, the Omnibus Appropriations bill for Fiscal 2003. At the outset, I'd…”

“I rise in support of this House Joint Resolution 2, the Omnibus Appropriations bill for Fiscal 2003. At the outset, I'd like to recognize the valiant efforts of the Chairman of our full Appropriations Committee, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Young. The Chairman has provided energetic and stalwart leadership throughout this unusually long appropriations cycle and this House owes him a debt of gratitude. The Conference Report before us is a better piece of legislation today for his efforts and those of the rest of the Subcommittee Chairmen. I want to thank our House Conferees and thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Speaker, I will support this Conference Report. In doing so, I echo the comments of many of my Colleagues. There is much to be proud of in this bill. We provide: Another $10 billion for intelligence and defense activities, the immediate need of which is self-evident; $825 million for our first-responders--those on the homefront we task to help our citizens in time of need; An additional $3.1 billion over the President's request for education--to keep our commitment to the No Child Left Behind Act; And the single largest program increase in the bill goes to NIH--the agency on the cutting edge of medical research and thus better support he collaborative efforts for basic research with our colleges and universities.; No, this bill is not perfect.”