NII grant programs cut

By Juan Antonio Osuna
CRA Staff

A program to connect schools, libraries, researchers and health care providers to the National Information Infrastructure was among the civilian programs cut to pay for an emergency military-spending package.

President Clinton signed a $3.1 billion measure April 10 to replenish Pentagon coffers drained by peacekeeping missions in Haiti, Somalia, Rwanda and elsewhere. The administration requested the measure because funding shortages endangered accounts reserved for military training and equipment maintenance.

To pay for these emergency funds, the package trims funds from other sectors of the Defense budget and from civilian agencies, including the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Technical Information Administration.

Among fiscal 1995 rescissions were $15 million from NTIA's Information Infrastructure Grant program and $90 million from NIST's Advanced Technology Program. Of the $64 million already appropriated for 1995 information infrastructure grants, $15 million must be returned.

Other legislation--HR 1158 in the House and S 617 in the Senate--threatens to obliterate remaining funds for the NII program. At press time these bills were in conference, where the House and Senate will iron out differences between the two versions. The House version contains a $30 million cut from the NII program.

However, a congressional staffer said conferees may modify this figure to reflect rescissions already contained in the military measure and actual funds remaining in the program's fiscal 1995 account. In other words, Congress cannot take back funds already spent.

Additional cuts could obliterate remaining funds and effectively cut the program in half. A House Appropriations Committee report (H. Rept. 104-70) justifies these cuts by saying:

"Many of the projects funded in the initial round of grant awards did not correspond with the committee's understanding of the program. The committee has proposed this reduction to slow the rate of growth in this program and allow for a more thorough evaluation of the program's goals as well as dialogue with the administration and the appropriate authorizing committees on the continuation of the program."

Also contained in HR 1158 is a $132 million bite out of the National Science Foundation's Academic Research Infrastructure account.

"The FY 1996 budget did not include continuation of this effort as required by the FY 1995 appropriation, and the amount recommended for rescission is the same as proposed by the president in the February 6, 1995, messages," the House report said.

Also cut was funding for the Commerce Department's National Technical Information Service, which was given a one-time capitalization of about $8 million for 1995. These funds were intended to help NTIS disseminate more federal information electronically to the public, particularly through federal depository libraries and government-operated bulletin boards and Internet sites.

The House bill cuts $4 million, thus chopping NTIS's funds in half. The committee report said it "feels that most of these modernization costs can be absorbed through fees paid by users of this technical information."

Finally, while the House bill contains $1.6 billion in cuts to the Education Department, the Senate version only cuts $600 million. These differences will be reconciled in conference.