ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 8, Number 107 October 22, 1999 In this issue: [1] Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations [2] VA, HUD, Independent Agencies Update [3] Interior Appropriations [4] Department Seeks Applicants for Visiting Scholars Fellowships [1] Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations After several meetings this week between House and Senate leaders and the Administration, agreement on the FY2000 Labor-HHS- Education Appropriations bill conference report seems to have occurred. Funding for library programs would be set at the Senate level of $155 million. Funding for ESEA Title VI would be set at $380 million. However, the across the board cut which has been discussed for several weeks would be set at 1.4 percent for all programs. The Committee for Education Funding (CEF), a coalition of education and related organizations of which ALA is a member, has gone on record opposing proposals for across the board cuts, and on October 18 called on Congress to support funding levels at least $2.9 billion over FY99. The compromise conference report, while providing funding above the President's request, is $1.6 billion above FY99. Some of the President's large initiatives, like class size reduction, would not be funded. Instead, several large programs would be merged into a Teacher Empowerment Block Grant (still to be authorized) with a funding reduction of $196 million. The Goals 2000 and Eisenhower Teacher Training programs would merge. Education Technology would be set at $707 million, below the President's request of $801 million. It is expected that House members may amend the report into the District of Columbia Appropriations bill, H.R. 2587, as early as Tuesday, October 26. Further details on the conference report will be provided as the legislation moves to the House floor. [2] VA, HUD, Independent Agencies Update On October 20, President Clinton signed H.R. 2684, (H. Rept. 106- 379), the Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development and other Independent Agencies appropriations bill. The bill included $126 million of the $146 million requested by the President for the National Science Foundation's portion of the Information Technology for the 21st Century initiative. The program, referred to as IT2, is divided among several federal scientific and technology agencies and would advance a broader range of information technology, beyond high performance, leading edge systems. It would fund important research in applications areas such as education and digital libraries. [3] Interior Appropriations On October 21, both House and Senate cleared H.R. 2466, the FY2000 Interior Appropriations bill conference report and sent the bill to the President. It is rumored that a Presidential veto awaits the bill because of anti-environmental features and low funding for the arts. Funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities would be set at the higher Senate level of $115.7 million, while funding for the National Endowment for the Arts would be set at $98 million, the level of FY99 funding. [4] Department Seeks Applicants for Visiting Scholars Fellowships Note: The following is an October 19 press release from the U.S. Department of Education. For more information contact David Thomas at (202) 401-1579. The U.S. Department of Education is offering fellowships to qualified applicants to work at the research institutes in the department's Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). Although the department is not restricting eligibility, individuals whose backgrounds or institutions have been historically underutilized in federal educational research are encouraged to apply. Those individuals include women, African- Americans, Hispanics, Native American Indians, other ethnic minorities, and promising young or new researchers. OERI provides national leadership for educational research and statistics, and funds education research, demonstration, and school improvement program; collects and analyzes statistics; reports on the condition of education; and disseminates information about education programs. The National Research Council is administering the Visiting Scholars Program for the department and will conduct a national competition to award five to eight fellowships to scholars, researchers, policy makers, education practitioners, librarians, and statisticians who are engaged in the use, collection and dissemination of information about education and educational research. The Visiting Scholars Program will seek fellows to assume nine to 12 month residences in Washington, D.C. at one of the department's research institutes, which study topics ranging from early childhood education and student assessment to postsecondary education and lifelong learning. Five to eight awards will be made in April 2000 to individuals who show the greatest promise for contributing to the designated institute and future achievement in educational research. Applications become available October 29, 1999 with a deadline of January 24, 2000. Mission statements from the research institutes and a list of priorities can be obtained by contacting the National Research Council. The projects proposed by the applicants may include specific research to be conducted at OERI, seminars held for OERI staff to further their knowledge of educational research, briefings for OERI research and analytical staff, and synthesis of the research results generated by OERI sponsored researchers. For an application package and more information, please contact: Fellowship Office National Research Council 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20418 (202) 334-02882 http://fellowships.nas.edu Sandra Steed is the department's coordinator for the Visiting Scholars Program. She can be reached on (202) 219-2197. ****** ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. To subscribe to ALAWON, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff. Editor: Lynne E. Bradley; Managing Editor: Deirdre Herman; Contributors: Sally Benson, Mary Costabile, Peter Kaplan, Miriam Nisbet, Carrie Russell, Emily Sheketoff, Saundra Shirley, Claudette Tennant and Rick Weingarten.