Senator Murray Secures Historic Investments for Working Families and Washington State in End of Year Funding Package

ICYMI: Senator Murray Secures $284 Million in Congressionally-Directed Spending for Washington State – MORE HERE 

ICYMI: Murray Secures Funding Boosts to Help Families Afford Child Care, Protect Workers’ Rights, Tackle the Opioid Crisis, and Much More – MORE HERE

ICYMI: Senator Murray Secures Investments to Protect Washington State Environments and Ecosystems, Invest in Climate Action and Clean Energy – MORE HERE

ICYMI: Senator Murray Announces Major Funding for Washington State Transportation, Housing Priorities in End-of-Year Package – MORE HERE

ICYMI: Senator Murray Secures Billions for Veterans, Military Families, and Delivers Support for Aging Veterans in Omnibus Package – MORE HERE

(Washington, DC) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, voted to pass the fiscal year 2023 bipartisan government spending package she helped author and negotiate. The spending package consists of 12 fiscal year 2023 appropriations bills as well as additional legislative bills attached to the overall funding package.

Senator Murray secured historic funding increases to invest in child care, lower costs for students and families, invest in our nation’s public schools, support cutting-edge medical research and our public health and preparedness efforts, address the mental health and substance use disorder crises, and more. Senator Murray also negotiated and passed several longstanding legislative priorities into the end of year package, including her sweeping PREVENT Pandemics Act to overhaul and strengthen our country’s public health preparedness and response efforts.

Notably, Senator Murray secured more than $284 million in Congressionally-Directed Spending to support local projects and organizations across Washington state.

“Every day I wake up and think how I can make life better for people in Washington state—and it’s my job to make sure that Washington state’s priorities are reflected in the spending decisions of the federal government,” said Senator Patty Murray. “In helping write this funding bill, I took the concerns of Washington state families with me into every negotiation I entered—to increase funding for child care in this country by a third, make badly-needed investments to tackle the opioid and mental health crises, strengthen our public health infrastructure, boost funding to help end homelessness, tackle the cost of housing, and so much more.”

“How we choose to spend our federal dollars is a reflection of our values—and I fought hard to deliver the largest increase to the Pell Grant in a decade, support every workers’ right to join a union, expand veterans’ care, protect our environment, and more,” continued Senator Murray. “This bill represents a historic investment in Washington state—from the federal agencies and priorities our state cares deeply about to the funding I was able to secure directly for local communities in every corner of Washington state from Seattle to Spokane.”

Murray Secures Historic Investments for Working Families in Child Care, Education, Mental Health, and more

As Chair of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (LHHS) Appropriations Subcommittee, Senator Murray led negotiations for the largest increase in nondefense spending across the 12 FY23 appropriations bills that comprise the end-of-year funding package.

Notably, Senator Murray secured a historic 30%—or $1.85 billion—increase in funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant; a $500 increase, or 7.2 percent, for a $7,395 maximum Pell Grant award—the largest increase in more than a decade; a long overdue $25 million increase in funding for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB); a $345 million increase in funding to address the opioid crisis; over $500 million more to respond to the mental health crisis and bolster the new 988 lifeline; a $2.5 billion increase in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support cutting-edge medical research; and $150 million increase in funding for our nation’s public health infrastructure.

READ MORE: Murray Secures Funding Boosts to Help Families Afford Child Care, Protect Workers’ Rights, Tackle the Opioid Crisis, and Much More

Murray Passes Landmark Health Reforms, Workers’ Rights Protections, and Retirement Legislation

As Chair of the Senate HELP Committee, Senator Murray negotiated and included major legislation into the end of year package, including:

• Murray’s landmark Prepare for and Respond to Existing Viruses, Emerging New Threats, and Pandemics Act (PREVENT Pandemics Act) to strengthen the nation’s public health and medical preparedness and response systems;
• A critical set of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reforms that allows for oversight of cosmetic products for the first time since FDA’s creation, modernizes and strengthens FDA’s accelerated approval pathway to work better for patients, and takes key steps to address the infant formula shortage and ensure the failures that contributed to the infant formula crisis never happen again;
• Legislation to address the nation’s mental health and substance use disorder crisis and challenges like the rise of fentanyl, and the sharp uptick in youth mental health emergencies;
• A package of bipartisan reforms she crafted to strengthen families’ retirement and emergency savings.
• The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which is closely modeled after the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), would require employers to make reasonable accommodations to allow pregnant workers to continue working safely, such as additional bathroom breaks, light duty, or a stool to sit on if a worker stands all day.
• The Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers (PUMP) Act which will help close loopholes that leave nearly nine million working moms uncovered by federal protections to ensure they have reasonable break time and a private place to pump.

Keeping Washington State Moving Forward and Tackling the Housing Crisis  

Senator Murray championed significant funding increases to meet Washington state’s housing and transportation needs. Of note, Senator Murray secured $115 million for the Sound Transit to help meet critical transportation infrastructure needs; $541.96 million for the TIG program for bus and bus facilities, low or no emission, and ferry boat grants; $800 million for the RAISE grant program for a wide variety of infrastructure projects; $535 million for the CRISI grant program to modernize the nation’s rail infrastructure by advancing passenger and freight rail projects; a record $212.2 million for the Port Infrastructure Development Program to allow significant improvements to port facilities and projects. For housing, Senator Murray secured $3.63 billion for Homeless Assistance Grants, $1.5 billion for the HOME Investment Partnerships Program to construct new affordable housing, sufficient funding to renew all existing contracts provided through Housing Choice Vouchers and project-based rental assistance, and $130 million for incremental vouchers to support households experiencing or at risk of homelessness, survivors of domestic violence, veterans at risk of or experiencing homelessness, and youth aging out of foster care.

READ MORE: Senator Murray Announces Major Funding for Washington State Transportation, Housing Priorities in End-of-Year Package

Investing in Climate Action and Protecting Washington State’s Environment.

Senator Murray secured major funding increases for critical environmental and climate programs that support Washington state priorities and projects such as salmon recovery, wildfire prevention, and more. Senator Murray prioritized funds that would restore vital salmon populations and protect delicate ecosystems. Senator Murray also played a key role in securing funds to boost Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) programs, climate and marine science research centers, clean energy investments, support for Washington state farmers and growers, and for the construction and maintenance of critical Washington state waterways, canals, and dams.

READ MORE: Senator Murray Secures Investments to Protect Washington State Environments and Ecosystems, Invest in Climate Action and Clean Energy

Supporting Washington State Veterans

Senator Murray was instrumental in securing important provisions to support veterans and military families. Notably, included in the end of year funding package is Senator Murray’s Planning for Aging Veterans Act of 2021, which would ensure that VA will pay for the medications of catastrophically disabled veterans who reside in state veterans homes and on whose behalf VA is paying a per diem for nursing home or domiciliary care. In addition, Senator Murray fought to secure $5 billion for the Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund to enact the provisions of the PACT Act, $2.7 billion to support critical services and housing assistance for veterans and their families experiencing housing insecurity, and secured critical language to ensure accountability and transparency from VA in its implementation of the Electronic Health Records Modernization, among other provisions.

READ MORE: Senator Murray Delivers for Veterans, Military Families in End of Year Funding Package

Meeting the Federal Governments Moral and Legal Obligation to Hanford and the Tri-Cities

Murray secured $2.736 billion in funding for the Hanford site, $141 million above FY22 enacted levels. This funding will provide support for ongoing cleanup operations, Waste Treatment Plant commissioning, High-Level Waste Treatment Plant construction, and tank farm activities. Further, it includes robust community support, funding for the ongoing modernization of the B Reactor and support the Hanford Workforce Engagement Center as well as the Volenpest HAMMER Federal Training Center.

Ending Child Summer Hunger

The end of year funding package notably establishes, for the first time ever, a permanent summer EBT program for child nutrition, a longtime priority of Senator Murray’s who first spearheaded this effort. The agreement provides families $40 per month per eligible child through a permanent EBT program to buy groceries to supplement traditional summer meals programs. The bill also establishes flexibility for alternative meal delivery for rural areas such as grab and go, mobile delivery, backpack programs, or shipping meals.

Senator Murray has been a leading advocate for kids and families in the United States Senate, especially during the pandemic, carrying legislation to stop child hunger every Congress since 2014 with the introduction of her Stop Child Summer Hunger Act. Having relied on food stamps for a brief time during her childhood, Senator Murray knows firsthand the difference a helping hand can make in the lives children.

Protecting Democracy and Supporting our Servicemembers

The end of year package is an investment in our national defense, giving our troops a raise, providing significant support for Ukraine, and Congress’s obligation to defend democracy through the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act. The legislation includes the following provisions:

• Electoral Count Reform Act: This section would reform and modernize the outdated Electoral Count Act of 1887 to ensure that electoral votes tallied by Congress accurately reflect each state’s vote for President. It would replace ambiguous provisions of the 19th-century law with clear procedures that maintain appropriate state and federal roles in selecting the President and Vice President of the United States as set forth in the U.S. Constitution.
• Presidential Transition Improvement Act: This section would help to promote the orderly transfer of power by providing clear guidelines for when eligible candidates for President or Vice President may receive federal resources to support their transition into office.

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