Huffman: Funding package includes money for Coyote Dam feasibility study

March 07, 2024

This week the U.S. House of Representatives passed the first six Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations bills, which Rep. Jared Huffman (D – San Rafael) described as including “significant victories for California’s Second Congressional District (and) over $9 million in federal funding for projects that (Huffman) nominated as part of the Community Project Funding process.”

Huffman also noted in a press release that the spending bills include “historic funding for Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act programs, including $1.3 billion for the Indian Housing Block Grant to help tribes address unmet housing needs.”

“For the past three fiscal years, we have been able to include funding for game-changing community projects in our district,” Rep Huffman is quoted as saying in the release. “I’m happy to share that I secured over $9 million for 13 projects (which will help) grow our economy and build healthier, safer, and stronger communities up and down the North Coast.”

Those projects include:

  • $500,000 for the Coyote Valley Dam General Investigation/Feasibility study in Mendocino
  • $500,000 for Anderson Valley Elementary Septic Replacement in Mendocino
  • $165,000 for the Mendonoma Mobile Health Clinic in Mendocino
  • $997,999 for the New Senior Center in Humboldt
  • $175,000 for Unidentified Human Remains Forensic Genetic DNA Testing in Humboldt
  • $236,140 for Purchase of Winter Weather Emergency Equipment in Trinity
  • $500,000 for Pyke Field Park Community Use Improvement Project in Del Norte

Rep. Huffman adds that he “worked to include provisions that put people over politics and help improve the lives of people in America,” and that the package:

  • Invests more than $10 billion in our nation’s water infrastructure, critical to protecting communities from more frequent and severe storms and worsening droughts.
  • Provides additional funding to continue the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act pay increase for wildland firefighters.
  • Supports our veterans and their families with investments in health care, including targeted investments that advance women’s health, mental health, substance abuse disorder programs, and homelessness assistance.
    Includes strong investments to plan, design, and construct critical facilities on military installations, including family housing, barracks, and child development centers, and build, repair, and retrofit Veterans Affairs facilities.
  • Confronts the climate crisis with more than $15 billion of transformative investments in clean energy and science, which will help develop clean, affordable, and secure American energy, increased climate change and resiliency funding to help military installations adapt to rising sea levels and worsening natural disasters, and increased funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to carry out its coastal, fisheries, marine, and satellite work.
  • Fully funds the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) at the administration’s requested level of $7.03 billion and reverses the Republican effort to drastically cut the fruit and vegetable benefits in the WIC program.
  • Protects women’s access to mifepristone and reproductive care against Republican attempts to ban abortion nationally.
  • Creates and sustains well-paying American jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure with investments in airports, highways, transit, passenger rail, port, and affordable housing.
  • Stabilizes communities by protecting housing assistance for nearly 5 million low-income individuals and families to ensure they continue to remain in safe, stable, and affordable housing.

The text of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 is available here. Community Project Funding included in the package is available here.

Huffman adds that “the legislation is scheduled to be signed into law by President Joe Biden on Friday, March 8, 2024, (and) the remaining six appropriations bills for fiscal year 2024 are expected to be released in the coming days and be voted on ahead of their expiration on March 22.”


Source: The Ukiah Daily Journal