By Corinne Murdock |

The following are some of the controversial carve outs within Congress’ 4,155-page, $1.7 trillion spending bill, “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023.” 

Fiscal Responsibility

• Waives PAYGO budgetary enforcement – $130 billion

Law Enforcement

• Jan. 6 prosecuting attorneys – $2.6 billion
• FBI investigations of extremist violence and domestic terrorism – $11.3 billion
• Capitol Police – $132 million

Criminal Justice Reform

• First Step Act of 2018 (enables prisoners to earn sentence reduction credits) – $409.4 million
• Restorative justice responses to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking – $15 million
• Culturally-specific services for female domestic/intimate violence victims – $11 million
• New restorative justice national center – $3 million
• Alternative sentencing programs – $3.5 million
• Drug courts – $95 million
• Mental health courts – $45 million
• Grants supporting community-based alternatives and restorative justice – $10 million
• Community violence intervention and prevention initiative grants – $50 million
• Community policing development activities, programs – $275.88 million

Social Justice 

• Health and Human Services for diversity training – over $100 million
• Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund – $200 million
• Women’s Leadership Program – $50 million 
• Foreign gender-based violence prevention – $250 million
• Foreign female empowerment – $150 million
• Hate crime outreach and training by state, local, and tribal law enforcement – $25 million
• Establishing Office of Diversity & Inclusion in the legislative branch – $3.5 million
• LGBTQ+ Pride Center in California – $1.2 million
• Community space for gender-expansive people – $1 million
• American LGBTQ museum in New York City – $3 million

Globalism

• Ukrainian military and economic aid – $45 billion
• Foreign food security and agricultural development – $1 billion ($265 million specifically for smaller enterprises by the poor, especially women)
• Foreign racial reconciliation – $25 million

Honors

• Nancy Pelosi Fellowship Program – $2 million 
• Renaming and boosting funding for the Lake Champlain Basin Program after Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) – $35 million
• President Jimmy Carter Museum upgrade – $7.25 million
• President Ulysses S. Grant Museum upgrade – $6 million

Welfare

• Child Care and Development Block Grant – $8 billion
• Head Start – $12 billion
• Pell Grant increase by $500 (7.2 percent) – up to around $3 to $3.5 billion
• Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program – $5 billion
• Community Development Block Grant formula program – $6.4 billion
• 21,500+ affordable housing units – $388 million

Environment

• Environmental Protection Agency – $576 million
• Sustainable landscapes – $185 million
• Foreign clean energy programs – $260 million
• Foreign indigenous environment protection, including species preservation – $20 million
• Climate crisis response – $15.3 billion 
• Multimodal, transit, bicycle and pedestrian, and passenger rail grants for green infrastructure – $1.7 billion
• “Defense” funding for climate crisis – $2 billion
• Foreign family planning/reproductive health, namely in “areas where population growth threatens biodiversity or endangered species” – $575 million

Pandemics

• Global Health Programs fund for future pandemics – $200 million
• COVID Response – $5 million
• COVID-19 American History Project – $1.5 million

The 4,155 page spending bill may be accessed here.

READ MORE: Arizona’s Congressional Leaders React to Omnibus

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.