Next Generation Internet Act Passes

By Stacy Cholewinski

The 105th Congress passed legislation that amends the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991. The amendments authorize appropriations for the fiscal years 1999 and 2000 for the Next Generation Internet (NGI) program. The President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) is to monitor and give advice concerning the development and implementation of the NGI program and is to report to the President and the Congress on its activities, and for other purposes.

The amendments contain important statements which emphasize the continued importance of the computing fields, such as "The United States investment in science and technology has yielded a scientific and engineering enterprise without peer, and [the] Federal investment in research is critical to the maintenance of United States leadership."

The new language is meant to increase the focus on research and development. As was meant with the introduction of NGI, the appropriations will create a network infrastructure that can support greater speed, robustness, and flexibility than is currently available and promote connectivity and interoperability among advanced computer networks of Federal agencies and departments. NGI also has a focus on research in technology that may result in high-speed data access for users without concern for economic viability and geographic locality. This act is noted as the 'Next Generation Internet Research Act of 1998' and can be found on the CRA website under http://www.cra.org/Policy/ngi.html.