Department of Commerce Encounters Tough Going in Congressional Hearings

It quickly became clear during House and Senate hearings this week on the Department of Commerce that its budget request is going to be slashed. The extent to which this will affect the core programs at the National Institute of Standards and Technology has yet to be seen, but it appears a near certainty that the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) is going to come under heavy fire.

One need look no further than the March 9 opening statement of House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich (R-Ohio) who told Secretary Ronald Brown that Commerce is “a department that Republicans have in their cross hairs.” While praising Brown for his overseas trade work, Kasich said that many of the department’s programs were duplicated elsewhere in the federal government or private sector. He quickly turned to direct criticism of ATP, declaring “I don’t like corporate welfare.” Kasich presented a large chart entitled “What do these companies have in common?”, which listed eight major high technology corporations, then answered, “Grants from the Department of Commerce.” While the ATP was created during a Republican Administration, Kasich said, “they were dead wrong,” declaring, “I’m going to go after” this.

Secretary Brown defended ATP as a means of ensuring the “development of early-stage, precompetitive civilian technologies,” adding in his prepared testimony that the program amounts to 0.5% of federal R&D funding. Until corporations start investing more heavily in R&D, Brown said, there is a need for ATP.

Vice Committee Chairman Bob Walker (R-Pennsylvania) questioned if ATP was more important than the NIST core program, since a much larger percentage budget increase was requested. Brown said ATP was not more important, explaining its historical funding level was almost “zero.” Walker was not satisfied with Brown’s reply, later saying, “that’s the real question, that’s the real debate.”

On March 6, Chairman Phil Gramm (R-Texas) of the Senate Commerce, State, Justice Appropriations Subcommittee held a brief hearing on the department’s FY 1996 budget request. His questions focused on programs such as ATP and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which he said were “aimed at moving the government into the development phase in partnership with the private sector.”

Secretary Brown responded that while the private sector must lead, “we in the government have to be better partners.” He argued that “many things [at the precompetitive stage] would not be done by the private sector.” Brown said he could make “a strong case” that such programs represented “one of the most important ways to leverage scarce government resources.” Ranking Minority Member Ernest Hollings (D-South Carolina) spoke in support of the NIST programs, but Sen. Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico) warned that in the current budget situation, “anybody who thinks this allocation [to the Commerce Department] wouldn’t be reduced is dreaming.”

Within the next few weeks the outlines of Republican efforts to change the Commerce Department will become clearer. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kansas) recommended today the elimination of the departments of Commerce, Energy, Education, and HUD. Chairman Kasich made no attempt to conceal his intentions, with a witness at the Budget Committee hearing, Wayne Berman saying, “Chairman Kasich, you are as serious as a heart attack about reducing the deficit.”

A final note: In addition to the “Physics” and “Materials Science & Engineering” Laboratory Program budgets cited in FYI #27, we have been informed by a NIST official of related requested program budget increases. They are:

“Technology Assistance: $3.0 million for Nanometrology and Development of Intrinsic Standards Under the Measurements and Standards for Emerging Instrumentation Industries initiative;

“Chemical Science and Technology: $0.5 million for Measurements for Traceability under the Health Care initiative;

“Building and Fire Research: $0.4 million for Automation in Construction under the Construction initiative;

“Electronics and Electrical Engineering: $0.3 million for Lithography and Contamination Control under the Semiconductor initiative.”

NIST reports that the $0.6 million requested increase in the Physics Laboratory budget will cover inflation.