Senate Commerce Committee Authorizes NIST
At this stage in the appropriations process, the House has passed a bill (H.R. 2076) funding the Department of Commerce for FY 1996 (see FYI #103, 108.) The Senate will take up the Commerce appropriations bill after returning from its August break on September 6. Although the House-passed appropriations bill funds the Department at 83 percent of its current level, its opponents have received a promise from the House leadership that legislation to eliminate the Department will be included in this fall’s budget reconciliation bill. (The reconciliation bill, which is different than the appropriations bills, is intended to provide details on how Congress will achieve the balanced-budget goal articulated in this spring’s Budget Resolution.)
Various hearings have been held and bills introduced in both chambers on the fate of the Commerce Department and its trade and technology programs, including NIST. While NIST’s core laboratory research functions have been preserved in both authorizing and appropriating legislation in the House, its extramural programs, the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), have not fared as well. The House Science Committee passed a bill (H.R. 1870) authorizing NIST’s laboratory research, but did not pass an authorization for the extramural programs (see FYI #89.) The House Appropriations Committee zeroed out funding for ATP, while decreasing MEP funding by 10.5 percent from its current budget.
However, a small ray of hope for the ATP has appeared in the Senate. Before leaving for the August recess, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, chaired by Larry Pressler (R-SD), on August 10 reported out a three-year authorization bill for the Commerce Department’s technology programs that includes some support for NIST’s extramural programs. According to Pressler, the bill, S. 1141, “lends strength and stability to the Department of Commerce’s important technology and research programs.... If we are going to reinvent the programs of the Commerce Department...this bill starts us on that path.” Pressler said the bill directs the Department to “establish a plan for eliminating the largely redundant Office of Technology Policy during fiscal year 1996, transferring any essential functions to NIST. The bill also makes substantial cuts in funding for the Technology Administration. However, with the exception of the Office of Technology Policy, the bill continues all of the Technology Administration’s major programs.”
“With regard to NIST,” Pressler said, “the bill provides $750 million for each of fiscal years 1996, 1997, and 1998. This authorization is a 12-percent cut from the fiscal year 1995 level of $854 million. The bill provides $263 million for the NIST internal research programs and standards activities.... [T]he bill fully funds NIST’s lab and standards programs from fiscal year 1996 through fiscal year 1998 at their fiscal year 1995 funding level....”
“The bill also provides strong support for NIST’s Industrial Technology Services [ITS] account, which funds the agency’s Advanced Technology Program and the manufacturing extension partnership. The bill authorizes $427 million a year from fiscal year 1996 through fiscal year 1998 for the ITS account, a cut of 19 percent from the fiscal year 1995 appropriation of $526 million.
“The bill leaves it to the discretion of the agency how to allocate funding among ATP, MEP, and the [Malcolm Baldridge] quality programs within the ITS account. However, the bill makes clear it does not authorize any funding for ATP grants after October 1, 1995. This limitation reflects the belief that, since it was first funded in fiscal year 1990, the ATP has grown too big, too fast, without demonstrating clear benefits to U.S. industry.... Accordingly, the bill only authorizes support for existing grants while Congress has a chance to evaluate more closely the value of ATP in our competitiveness strategy.”
Pressler’s bill also provides $60 million for construction and renovation of NIST facilities in each of the three years, and recommends that NIST establish an Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Technology [EPSCOT]. “Modeled after similar programs at the National Science Foundation and other science agencies,” Pressler explained, “EPSCOT will provide grants for research and outreach work in rural States like my home State of South Dakota.... Our rural States want to contribute to the technological revolution. EPSCOT will help them do so.”
Whether Pressler’s views on NIST funding have an influence on the actions of the Senate Commerce Appropriations Subcommittee remains to be seen.
