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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary


For Immediate Release March 28, 2000

STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY

President Clinton today sent to the Congress a FY 2000 supplemental request for $253 million, which includes funding for the Social Security Administration, aviation safety improvements, and summer jobs for low-income youth. This supplemental also requests additional resources for the Ricky Ray Hemophilia Fund and the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States. These supplemental requests are all fully offset.

The President is asking the Congress to provide an additional $35 million for the Social Security Administration to fund the one-time costs of repealing the retirement earnings test for workers at or above the normal retirement age. This funding is needed to cover the administrative costs of processing retroactive benefit payments and additional claims, handling the expected increases in telephone calls and field office visits, and reprogramming computer systems, while ensuring no deterioration in FY 2000 service levels.

This supplemental requests $77 million for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to respond to the current demands of air traffic, address increasing delays, and continue high levels of safety and security. Of the total, $6 million will be used to hire 170 aviation safety inspectors and medical and certification staff, who will ensure industry compliance through an additional 10,000 safety and 100 substance abuse inspections. The balance of the request, $71 million, will be used for critical air traffic control support activities, including contract maintenance, contract training, additional spare parts, and telecommunications lines. This proposal is in addition to the supplemental transfer authority previously requested for FAA.

A proposal for $40 million will support youth activities by providing summer jobs or other opportunities to about 24,000 low-income youth. The supplemental funds will be distributed to the workforce investment areas containing the 50 cities in the United States with the largest populations for youth formula-funded activities.

The supplemental also requests $100 million, for a total of $175 million for FY 2000, for payments authorized by the Ricky Ray Hemophilia Relief Fund Act. The Act authorized the establishment of a $750 million trust fund administered by the Secretary of Health and Human Services for the purpose of disbursing payments to persons with hemophilia who contracted HIV through the use of tainted blood products between July 1982 and December 1987. Spouses and children of affected individuals who became HIV-infected are also eligible for payment. The President is committed to full funding for this Fund.

The President is also asking the Congress to provide an additional $1.4 million for the Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States. The supplemental funds will support additional activities related to the completion of a statutorily mandated comprehensive report on the acquisition and disposition of Holocaust-era assets in the United States, due to the Congress by December 31, 2000. These additional activities include a review of agreements that may have existed between the United States and Western European countries regarding the restitution of property to individuals; a review of bank and travel agent records of assets transferred to the United States by Holocaust victims; and, the implementation of a project that would cross-match records of Holocaust victims with unclaimed property lists.

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