ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 9, Number 63 July 19, 2000 In this issue: APPROPRIATIONS UPDATE AS OF JULY 19 The following status list is published for your information on the fast-moving appropriations bills. Please refer to other ALAWON coverage of the FY2001 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations legislation for further details. LABOR HHS EDUCATION APPROPRIATIONS H.R.4577, S. 2553 (H. REPORT. 106-645; S. REPORT. 106-293): The bill includes funding for education programs and library programs funded through the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Status: Some preliminary meetings have been held with conferees scheduled to meet this evening, Wednesday, July 19th at 5:00 p.m. However, there may be some Senate schedule changes because of the death of Sen. Paul Coverdell (R-GA). The Administration has already signaled intent to veto House and Senate bills based on lack of funding for Administration priorities. In addition, the Administration's message to both House and Senate opposes any mandated filtering. (See ALAWON v.9 n. 62 for detailed description of filtering amendments and list of conferees). The House bill would fund LSTA library programs at $170 million; the Senate bill would fund LSTA at $168 million and includes 34 suggested projects for earmarks. ESEA Title VI would be funded at $365.7 million in the House bill, and in the Senate ESEA Title VI would have additional uses for the block grant like school construction, and teacher training but would fund the block grant at $3.1 billion. Both bills split the funding into two years. Funding message to conferees: LSTA--House bill highest number please and ignore earmarks; ESEA Title VI-Senate bill highest number please. LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS Legislative Branch Appropriations H.R. 4516, S. 2603 (H. Report. 106635; S. Report. 106-293) The bill includes funding for the Library of Congress, the Government Printing Office, the Superintendent of Documents, and the Federal Depository Library Program. The original House bill woefully underfunded almost all budget lines, particularly the Government Printing Office and Superintendent of Documents. The Senate completed passage of H.R. 4516 on 7/17/00 and appointed Senators Robert Bennett (R-UT), Ted Stevens (R-AK), Larry Craig (R-ID), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Robert Byrd (D-WVA) as Senate conferees on the legislation. House conferees will be from the House Appropriations Committee and Subcommittee and will include C.W.Bill Young (R-FLA) chair of Appropriations and Charles H. Taylor (R-NC) chair of the Subcommittee. Funding message to conferees: Senate highest numbers please COMMERCE, JUSTICE, STATE APPROPRIATIONS Commerce Justice State Appropriations -H.R. 4690 (H. Report 106- 680) The bill includes funding for the TIIAP program and funding for Patent and Trade Depository Libraries. The House passed its bill on June 26; Senate committee completed action on July 18. Senate bill numbers are not yet available. INTERIOR APPROPRIATIONS Interior Appropriations--H.R.4578 (H. Report 106-646) The bill includes funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the museum side of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The Senate passed H.R. 4578 on July 18. Funding in the House bill for the NEA would be set at $98 million, the same as FY2000 and funding for NEH would be set at $115.26 million also the same as last year's level. The Senate bill would increase both NEA and NEH to $105 million and $120 million respectively. The Senate bill adds $600,000.00 to the museum portion of IMLS. Funding message to conferees: Senate highest numbers please Conferees that have not yet been announced for the above legislation will be published as soon as they are available. If your Representatives or Senators are not conferees or may not be, they can speak to conferees about your interests. Capitol Switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. ****** 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. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. 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