ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 9, Number 83 October 17, 2000 In this issue: [1] POSTAL LEGISLATION PASSES HOUSE AND SENATE -- AWAITING PRESIDENTIAL SIGNATURE [2] Congress Approves GPO Appropriations for FY 2001 On October 6, S. 2686, legislation which established postal rate provisions for certain preferred subclasses, particularly classroom periodicals and library and educational mail, was put on a Senate consent calendar and passed the Senate with no debate (CR, 10/06/00, S10114, v. 146). This legislation was also passed in the House of Representatives on October 11 (CR, 10/11/00, H9801-H9803). S. 2686 is awaiting signature by the President. It is expected that he will sign the bill this week. According to the Congressional Record (CR 10/11/00) statement by Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL), the bill was a result of a compromise worked out by a number of players, including Rep. John McHugh (R- NY), chairman of the Postal Service Subcommittee of the Government Reform Committee. Although the legislation is not a major re-write of the postal law, it would provide some classes of mailing (like the library rate) with a cap provision which, it is hoped, will limit the extremely large increases proposed yearly by the Postal Service. Representative McHugh said in his statement for the record that "this is an extremely important piece of legislation to ensure the financial viability and survivability of nonprofit mailers, the kinds of nonprofit mailers that all of us have and enjoy in our communities, churches, charitable organizations, educational publications, and so many others." The statement continues to explain that the rate case under consideration by the Postal Rate Commission would have had "a very serious impact on the profitability of not-for-profits, also on the ability of those very important organizations to reach out to their membership to disseminate important information with respect to their activities." The legislation would promulgate a Special Rule for Library and Educational Matter as follows: "(e) Special Rule for Library and Educational Matter.-Section 3626(a) of title 39, United States Code, as amended by subsection(d) of this section, is amended by adding at the end the following: "(7) The rates for mail matter under former sections 4554 (b) and (c) of this title shall be established so that postage on each mailing of such mail shall be as nearly as practicable 5 percent lower than the postage for corresponding regular-rate mailing." The legislation contains a provision to alleviate the impact of the changes on regular-rate payers in the postal rate case before the Postal Rate Commission. Cost decreases caused by the enactment of the legislation would be apportioned among the various classes of mail and types of postal services. Rep. Davis' statement said, "The bill is obviously good. It is necessary, because the formula passed in 1993 has become ineffective. In fact, the U.S. Postal Service has difficulty measuring the costs attributed directly to nonprofit mail, so the costs have been steadily rising." [2] Congress Approves GPO Appropriations for FY 2001 On October 12, the Senate passed of the conference agreement on H.R. 4516, the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act for 2001. The House of Representatives approved the conference agreement on September 14. Now the measure waits for the President's signature to become law. Under Title I of the Act, Congress approved $71,462,000 for GPO's Congressional Printing and Binding Appropriation, which is used to cover the costs of printing work that GPO performs for Congress, such as the Congressional Record, bills, reports, and hearings. This is a reduction of $1,835,000, or nearly 3%, less than the $73,297,000 that was approved for fiscal year 2000. Under Title II, Congress approved $27,954,000 for the Salaries and Expenses Appropriation of the Superintendent of Documents. This funding is used to cover the costs of distributing Government publications as required by law, including distribution to Federal depository libraries, cataloging and indexing Government documents, distributing Government publications to recipients designated by law, and distributing Government publications to other nations which agree to send copies of their official publications to the Library of Congress. This is a reduction of $1,918,000, or about 6%, from the $29,872,000 that was approved for 2000. In making this reduction, the conferees directed that "emphasis should be on streamlining the distribution of traditional paper copies of publications which may include providing online access and less expensive electronic formats." GPO has already initiated actions to accelerate the ongoing transition of the Federal Depository Library Program to a more electronic basis. The final levels appropriated for each of GPO's accounts represent compromises between the different levels of funding proposed by the House and the Senate. The conferees also agreed to authorize the transfer of appropriations balances from preceding fiscal years to GPO's revolving fund. The two appropriations total $99,416,000, or nearly 4% of the Legislative Branch Act overall. They represent a decrease of $3,753,000, or about 4%, from the level of $103,169,000 that was approved for GPO for fiscal year 2000. GPO's appropriations have declined 13% in the past 5 years, from a high of $114.1 million in 1996. During the same period, GPO's staffing, as measured by full-time equivalents, decreased by nearly 25% from 4,129 at the beginning of fiscal year 1996 to 3,100 at the end of fiscal year 2000. During the same period, GPO has developed GPO Access (www.access.gpo.gov) into one of the Federal Government's premier Internet sites, which currently is used by the public to retrieve more than 25 million Government documents every month. The FY 2001 Legislative Branch Appropriations Act contains additional directions from Congress. A study is to be made of the printing needs of the House of Representatives as is an evaluation of transferring such funds as may be necessary to meet those needs from GPO's Congressional Printing and Binding appropriation to the Clerk of the House in fiscal year 2003. The conferees also directed the General Accounting Office to conduct a study "on the impact of providing documents to the public solely in electronic format." The study is to include "an assessment of the feasibility of the transfer of the depository library program to the Library of Congress." The study is currently underway. ****** 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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