_________________________________________________________________ ALAWON Volume 7, Number 100 ISSN 1069-7799 September 4, 1998 American Library Association Washington Office Newsline In this issue: (91 lines) SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE APPROVES FY99 LABOR-HHS-EDUCATION APPROPRIATIONS BILL _________________________________________________________________ SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE APPROVES FY99 LABOR-HHS-EDUCATION APPROPRIATIONS BILL On September 3 the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the FY99 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill. The bill, which was approved by the Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee on September 1, now must be considered by the full Senate. Details of Appropriations Committee actions are not yet available, but indications are that library programs were given a $10 million increase over the House number, making the total $156.3 million. ESEA Title VI, however, was set by the Senate at $350 million, the same as FY98, while the House number is $400 million. The Senate total for education is approximately $1.5 billion above FY98. Several of the President's education priorities, particularly in higher education, were funded by the Senate. For example, the High Hopes for College Program, a college-high school partnership, and the proposed Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnership Program, a distance learning initiative, were funded at $75 million and $10 million respectively -- although neither program is yet authorized. No funds were set aside for the proposed children's literacy initiative. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), chair of the Appropriations Committee, announced at the meeting's outset that the Senate had approved 9 of the thirteen appropriations bills, and had just finished with the FY99 Treasury-Postal Appropriations bill and an emergency supplemental appropriations bill of $3.25 billion for Year 2000 problems. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), chair of the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee, stated that "the balanced budget imposes extreme limits on spending," and the proposed tobacco settlement which did not materialize as well as other non-authorized, proposed legislation had an impact on whether extra funds would be available. He said $2 billion had been added to National Institutes of Health, bringing NIH funding to $15.6 billion. The Subcommittee added back funding for low-income heating as well as summer jobs -- programs which had been zeroed out in the House Appropriations Committee action. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), ranking minority member of the Subcommittee, said that, "while the bill is not perfect, it does restore some of the House omissions," but added that "there are many unmet priorities and more funds are needed." Sen. Stevens speculated that with two religious holidays in September there would probably not be enough time to finish all the appropriations bills, and it would be necessary to pass a Continuing Resolution to keep government open until all the work was done. He suggested there might be an opportunity to deal with additional funds for the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill, depending on negotiations. On the House side, H.R. 4274, the House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill reported out of the House Appropriations Committee on July 20, has not yet been voted on by the full House. The House returns on Tuesday, September 8. Much work remains for House and Senate in the short time before the end of the 105th Congress. _________________________________________________________________ ALAWON is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. To subscribe, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc @ala.org. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/ subscribe.html or send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/ washoff/alawon. Visit our Web site at http://www.alawash.org. ALA Washington Office 202.628.8410 (V) 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, #403 202.628.8419 (F) Washington, DC 20004-1701 800.941.8478 (V) Lynne E. Bradley, Editor Deirdre Herman, Managing Editor Contributors: Mary Costabile All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. _________________________________________________________________