White House says bills on R&D, cybersecurity fall short

The House resumed debate Tuesday on fiscal 2001 spending legislation for the Veterans Affairs Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and several independent agencies, including the National Science Foundation, which would be funded at a level far below what the Clinton administration requested.

Citing the funding levels proposed for NSF and numerous other programs, White House advisers have recommended that President Clinton veto the bill if it is passed in its current form, according to a statement of administration policy. The bill, which the House began debating Monday, would provide more than $4 billion in funding for NSF, $508 million less than requested by the President. The administration argues that the bill would "seriously undermine priority investments" in information technology and other areas.

Such concerns were echoed by House Science Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., who urged lawmakers to provide a better balance between funding for health research, which has generally seen bigger increases, and other areas.

The administration also called on lawmakers to provide funding for critical infrastructure programs at NSF and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The administration requested $43 million for such activities at NSF and $673,000 for FEMA.

Appropriators defended the legislation as doing the best they could with the limited funding levels set by Congress.

"Like most of the appropriations subcommittees, we were given a very tight ... allocation," said Rep. James Walsh, R-N.Y., chairman of the appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the bill. "Nevertheless, we were able to make what I think are good policy and funding choices to produce a good, fair bill."

Meanwhile, the House Rules Committee was expected to meet Tuesday to establish the ground rules for debate on the fiscal 2001 spending bill for the Commerce, Justice and State departments, expected to be on the House floor later this week.

That bill also faces a potential veto if passed in its current form. Among the problems cited by Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob Lew in a letter to the House Appropriations Committee last week was the lack of funding for two Commerce Department programs, the Advanced Technology Program and the Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection. The latter is a new $48 million program that would focus on research not being done by the private sector aimed at protecting critical computer systems. Administration officials are working on a more detailed proposal for the institute in hopes of persuading Senate appropriators to fund it in their version of the bill.

The Commerce-Justice bill also would provide approximately $5 million less than the $7 million requested by the President for the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office, which was established to help coordinate the implementation of federal infrastructure protection plans. The committee has proposed $1.9 million for the office, but assumed it would carry over $1.36 million in fiscal 2000 funding.