Grim Prognosis for NIST Extramural Programs
Partisan squabbling highlighted yesterday’s House Science Subcommittee on Technology mark-up of two authorization bills for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The American Technology Advancement Act would authorize funding for NIST’s core laboratory programs and badly-needed construction. NIST’s cooperative programs with industry, the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) and the Manufacturing Extension Partnerships (MEP), were addressed in a second bill, the NIST Industrial Technology Services Authorization Act. While authorizing legislation gives approval and sets spending ceilings for programs, funding is actually provided by the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations Subcommittee.
The first bill designated $272.2 million for NIST’s intramural laboratory programs in fiscal year 1996, and $65.5 million for construction of research facilities (in both cases, more than FY1995 funding but less than the President’s FY1996 request.) The second bill authorized “such sums as may be appropriated” for NIST’s ATP and MEP programs, effectively allowing for funding if appropriators are able, and willing, to do so. The purpose behind this strategy, subcommittee chair Connie Morella (R-MD) said, was to send “the signal to the appropriators that...NIST core funding and construction must be maintained as the first priority.” Morella said she was operating within budget caps set by House Science Committee Chairman Robert Walker (R-PA), and consistent with the House-passed Budget Resolution. An avid NIST supporter (one of NIST’s two facilities is in her district), Morella made it clear that her “preference would be to fully fund every NIST function. However, given our commitment to balance the budget, that simply cannot be the reality.”
Her approach was challenged on several fronts by subcommittee Democrats. George Brown (D-CA), former science committee chairman, charged that the subcommittee was not legally bound by any caps and could authorize any amount they chose for NIST’s programs. He called the caps an “artful fiction contrived by the chairman of the full committee,” who has long opposed NIST’s extramural programs. John Tanner (D-TN), Paul McHale (D-PA), and other Democrats complained that while the science committee has scheduled mark-ups next week for other authorization bills, the bill authorizing ATP and MEP is not scheduled for discussion, causing those programs to “die a quiet death.”
After failing to pass an amendment to set specific funding levels for ATP and MEP in the first bill, the Democrats offered an amendment that, while keeping Morella’s text intact, simply merged the two bills into one. This tactic, they insisted, was the only way to assure that the extramural programs would be debated in the full committee. Morella said she believed that the second bill would receive full committee consideration at some time. The appropriators are due to mark up their bill on June 27. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) pointed out that any authorizing legislation not passed by the full committee by that time would have little effect on the appropriations process. The amendment to combine the two bills failed, 7 to 6, on a party-line vote. The amendment’s defeat, Tanner said, “puts the final nail in the coffin of both of these programs.”
The authorization bill for NIST’s core laboratory programs is scheduled to be marked-up by the full science committee on June 22.
