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Democrat Chairman of the Budget Committee

WILLIAM H. GRAY, III

Rep. William H. Gray, from the Second Congressional District of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), is serving his third term in the House of Representatives. He is Vice-Chairman for Legislation of the Congressional Black Caucus, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Brain-trust, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Board of Directors and Chairman of the 1984 Black Caucus Weekend.

Gray is the only member of the Congressional Black Caucus sitting on the House Budget Committee. During deliberations on the budget resolution for fiscal year 1985, Gray secured a 3.5 percent increase in federal health, nutrition, education, housing and other services for low-income and unemployed people. Through Gray's efforts, the budget resolution in fiscal year 1984 contained 75 percent of Congressional Black Caucus funding recommendations.

The Congressman has become a leading spokesman on African policy. In his first term in Congress, he served on the Africa Subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He now serves on the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee which funds all foreign economic and military assistance.

A leading voice against apartheid, Gray was the author of an historic amendment to the Export Administration Act which prohibits any new investment by American companies in South Africa. This amendment was the first such sanction against the apartheid regime in South Africa ever passed by either chamber of Congress. It received broad, bipartisan support and passed the House of Representatives on Oct. 67, 1983.

A co-chairman of the Democratic Platform Committee, Gray's amendment for economic sanctions against South Africa became part of the party's platform for the 1984 presidential campaign.

In the District of Columbia Committee, where he chairs the Government Operations and Metropolitan Affairs Subcommittee, Gray actively opposed an attempt to override the District of Columbia City Council's decision to remove all municipal pension funds from investment in South Africa. The attempt was defeated.

Gray also authored legislation which provide at least 10 percent of the Agency for International Development's development assistance funds to be set-aside for minority businesses, private voluntary organizations and historically Black colleges and universities. This legislation was enacted in Nov. 1983 and makes available an additional $90 million in fiscal year 1984 from the Agency for International Development for minority participation in international development. Potentially $1 billion would be made available over the next six years.

The Philadelphia Democrat was one of the first to raise concerns about a drought that was the most severe to strike Africa in recent history and guided legislation that resulted in an emergency supplemental appropriation of $150 million for food aid to Africa and an additional $90 million in commodity credit. 

In the foreign operations appropriations bill for fiscal year 1985, Gray increased the amount of health assistance the United States sends to Africa by $15 million, guaranteeing a minimum of $42 million for Africa in fiscal year 1985.

Also in that bill, the Congressman included an amendment which directs the Agency for International Development to investigate its policies for hiring minorities and women. 

In the 96th Congress, he became the only freshman member in this century to pass legislation creating a new government agency, the African Development Foundation, which began operating in February 1984. The African Development Foundation operates independently by financing small-scale development projects in African villages.

Gray also serves on the Transportation Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. In that subcommittee, Gray initiated a new program for minority businesses and expanded two others. He increased the Urban Mass Transit Administration's (UMTA) demonstration bonding program for minority businesses from $3 million to $5 million.

Gray initiated a second program, which will be patterned after the UMTA program, to be administered by the Federal Highway Administration. This program will provide $10 million in bonding for minority businesses contracting with the Federal Highway Administration on transportation projects. 

Pennsylvania, New York, and Florida are the three states targeted for this initiative. A total of $200 million in bonding for economically disadvantaged businesses will be made available in the three demonstration states.

In addition, Gray authored an amendment which was passed by the Transportation Subcommittee and provides $1 million for historically black colleges and universities and economically disadvantaged businesses to do transportation research. In fiscal year 1984, these groups received only $650,000 for such research.

Because of Gray's work in the Subcommittee on Transportation and the full Appropriations Committee, the Committee Report on the 1984 Transportation Appropriations Bill directs the Reagan Administration to immediately develop regulations to carry our the Mitchell Amendment to the Surface Transportation Act of 1983. This amendment sets aside at least 10% of certain Department of Transportation contracts for minority contractors. 

He received a bachelor of arts degree from Franklin and Marshall College in 1963, earned his masters in divinity from Drew Theological School in 1966 and his masters in theology from Princeton Theological School in 1970. He completed graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University and Mansfield College at Oxford University, England.

He has been the pastor at Bright Hope Baptist Church in Philadelphia since 1972 and was the pastor at Union Baptist Church in Montclair, N.J. from 1964 to 1972.

He is the founder and past president of five non-profit housing corporations, which have constructed more than $20 million in low and moderate income housing, and helped design the Philadelphia Mortgage Plan which has produced more than $84 million in residential mortgages for Philadelphia's inner-city neighborhoods.

He is married to Andrea Dash of New Jersey. They are parents of three sons, William H., Justin Yates and Andrew Dash.

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