Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit Baltimore on Tuesday to promote funding that will help police address a backlog of untested rape kits.
Biden is to be joined by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who as chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee argued for funding to begin clearing the hundreds of thousands of rape kits that were collecting dust in police storage areas across the country.
The $1.1 trillion government spending bill signed by President Obama in December included $41 million to help police get more of those kits tested.
Biden and Mikulski, now the top Democrat on the Republican-controlled appropriations committee, are to speak at the Maryland State Police Forensic Science Laboratory in Pikesville at an event that begins at 3 p.m.