Now living on B Street SE, Chipman spent much of his time in Congress advocating for the District's public works program. Among the bills he submitted to Congress was a bill to appropriate 2,500,000 acres of land to build schools, a bill to appropriate $200,000 to complete construction of the Washington Monument, and a bill to build a new bridge over the Anacostia River, a bill to improve the Washington harbor. When Congressman Robert Roosevelt sharply criticized the District's board of public works, calling it rife with fraud and corruption, Chipman fiercely defended the board, saying Roosevelt's charges were based on willful misinformation and false accounts.