ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 9, Number 65 July 31, 2000 In this issue: As of Friday, July 28th, Congress is adjourned for basically the entire month of August. As soon as the political conventions are completed, Representatives and Senators will be busy holding election-year town meetings, rallies, and generally being very visible in individual communities. While they are at home be sure to take the opportunity to remind them about some important issues. Contact the Washington Office (1-800-941-8478), or use our web site for further information (www.ala.org /washoff ). APPROPRIATIONS UPDATE HR 4577-FY2001 LABOR, HHS, EDUCATION APPROPRIATIONS As of Thursday, July 27, 2000, the FY2001 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations conferees adjourned with plans to take their conclusions to the Administration for further discussion. It appears that the agreed-on numbers now have reached a higher spending level overall than that requested by the Administration. There are still remaining some problematic riders, and several variations of filtering amendments are still in play, with Senators John McCain and Rick Santorum and Representatives Ernest Istook and Thomas Bliley involved in working out some language. Any filtering amendments would be authorizing language, and some amendments address the E-rate. Therefore, Representative Bliley has been included as a key authorizer of the original Telecommunications bill. No final conference report is available. In the always volatile and changing scenarios at the end of session there may be further changes. ACTION NEEDED: The message to Representatives and Senators during the August recess still remains: 1. Highest numbers please 2. Resist any attempts to add federally mandated filtering requirements. HR 4516 (Conference Report 106-796) LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS HR 4871-TREASURY/POSTAL Even though the Senate Subcommittee was quite proud of its restoration of higher levels in all the accounts of the Legislative Branch appropriations bill, when it came to conference, agreement was reached to split the difference. The result is that the Government Printing Office is set at $99.4 million less that FY2000's level of $103.2 and particularly the Superintendent of Documents account is short by $3 million of the requested $30.4 million, being funded at $27.9 million. The Library of Congress is funded at $412.2 million. A further complication is that the Treasury-Postal Appropriations bill has been added to the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill, in an attempt to speed up the process. In the summary of action released by the House Appropriations Committee, it is noted that the National Archives received $5.9 million to transfer and begin processing Presidential and federal records from the Clinton Administration. HR 4690 COMMERCE, JUSTICE, STATE APPROPRIATIONS On July 19, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved HR 4690, the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations bill and increased the level of funding for the Patent and Trademark Office. According to the Tech Law Journal of 7/19/00, the Senate action was taken as a result of much interest from the intellectual property trade groups and companies that own intellectual property. At the ALA summer Conference in Chicago, ALA Council agreed to a resolution urging Congress to allow the Patent and Trademark Office to use all of its revenues. For the past several years, Congress has diverted some of the revenues from PTO to other parts of government and this year's proposal in the House bill would have deferred the highest level yet, an action detrimental to PTO and to its users. The Washington Office has transmitted a letter attaching that resolution to all conferees on HR 4690. (Cf., www.ala.org). All legislation-related resolutions adopted by ALA Council were transmitted by the ALA Washington Office to the appropriate Members of Congress. ACTION NEEDED: Because even a split of the difference, which conference committees often do, would have a detrimental action on PTO, library supporters should ask Senators and Representatives for "the highest number please." Any action less than the Senate numbers could impact the patent depository libraries' abilities to serve the public with information on Patents and Trademarks. ****** 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. 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. Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Mary Costabile, Peter Kaplan, Miriam Nisbet and Claudette Tennant. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Jennifer Hendrix, Carrie Russell and Saundra Shirley.