Recent Developments: ATP Awards, DOE Appropriations
ATP ANNOUNCES NEW AWARD COMPETITION: During the FY 1996 appropriations process, one of the reasons President Clinton gave for vetoing the Commerce, Justice and State Appropriations bill was that it would eliminate new funding for NIST’s Advanced Technology Program (ATP), a cost-sharing program between industry and government to speed development of pre-competitive, enabling technologies. In the final FY 1996 omnibus spending bill signed on April 26, ATP was given a total of $221 million for all of FY 1996 (compared to FY 1995 funding of $430.4 million.) Critics of the program tried to include language in the conference report specifying that this money was only for continuation of previously-awarded, multi-year grants. Although this language was ultimately omitted, at an April 25 hearing of the House Commerce Appropriations Subcommittee (see FYI #76), Chairman Harold Rogers (R-KY) indicated that it still represents Congress’s intent.
Nonetheless, on May 31, NIST announced a new general competition for ATP awards. Although awards will not be announced until early next year (the proposal deadline is September 18), NIST plans to use $20-25 million of its $221 million FY 1996 appropriation to fund the first year of these awards. (The projects may run up to three years for individual companies, and five years for joint ventures.) It remains to be seen how ATP opponents in Congress will react.
DOE APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ALLOCATION MAY INCREASE: Already, even before the House and Senate could agree on numbers for FY 1997 spending in a budget resolution, those numbers are being revisited. The budget resolution, once the House and Senate versions are reconciled, is supposed to dictate overall funding for a fiscal year. Out of this pot, the House and Senate make allocations to the 13 appropriations subcommittees in each chamber.
Because of protests from House appropriators and because the Senate voted to increase overall funding in its budget resolution, House Appropriations Chairman Bob Livingston (R-LA) unofficially announced on May 30 that he hopes to make an additional $2.9 billion available to be spread among the FY 1997 spending bills. According to reports, the protests were loudest from Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Myers (R-IN) (see FYI #84.) Myers’ subcommittee last year swallowed a cut of $1.6 billion, resulting in an appropriation of $19.3 billion to cover most Energy Department programs as well as water projects.
This year, the House version of the budget resolution originally called for the Energy and Water Development allocation to be cut by another 5.4 percent, or more than $1 billion. Myers refused to mark up his subcommittee’s bill until more money was made available. Out of the extra funding that Livingston hopes to provide, Energy and Water Development would receive the largest portion - an additional $775 million - increasing the subcommittee’s FY 1997 allocation to about $19 billion, or approximately a 1.4 percent reduction from the current year. The full House has not approved this increase yet, and no mark-up date has been set for the Energy and Water bill. The House and Senate have yet to reach agreement on the budget resolution.
