House approves plan to build women's history museum, an estimated $375M venture

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House lawmakers voted Tuesday to pass a bill to start construction on a new museum dedicated to American women's history as part of D.C.'s Smithsonian.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that a proposed 350,000-square-foot museum would cost $375 million over 10 years.

The project will likely incorporate pieces of already existing exhibits that showcase historical contributions of American women, such as from the African American museum, the Air and Space Museum and the Museum of American History but also feature its own dedicated programming, Linda St. Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Smithsonian, told the Associated Press.

INSIDE THE SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY'S NEWLY RENOVATED DINOSAUR HALL

St. Thomas also added that, like previous museum endeavors, the financing is expected to be half government funding and half private donations.

The bill has the bipartisan support of 293 co-sponsors and garnered 374 votes in the Democrat-led House.

Thirty-six Republicans and Rep. Justin Amash, I-Mich., voted against the measure.

“Seeing role models doing things we all aspire to can change the course of someone’s life,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., one of the bill's principal sponsors. "Women and men of all ages deserve to see and be inspired by the remarkable women who helped shape this nation.”

A similar piece of legislation was introduced in the Senate by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, last March but has yet to be approved.

Although the Senate bill is expected to pass, the timeline for the project remains uncertain. The bill to create the African American museum, the newest addition to the Smithsonian, passed in 2003 but the museum itself didn't open its doors until September 2016.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.