House Republicans Propose Funding NTIA Far Below Administration Request
House appropriators proposed giving NTIA far less money than it requested for FY 2016. House Appropriations Commerce Subcommittee Republicans released their draft proposal for an appropriations bill encompassing the Commerce Department and NTIA. NTIA would receive $35.2 million for FY…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
2016, but the administration had requested $49.2 million for the year. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker has testified on the department’s need before appropriators in both chambers this year. The GOP proposal would allocate $8.2 billion for Commerce, below the FY 2015 amount by more than $250 million, and below the funding request by $1.6 billion. The National Institute of Standards and Technology would receive $855 million, $9 million less than it received this fiscal year. The Republicans argued that “core” NIST functions are preserved, such as cybersecurity activities. The proposal also “continues language prohibiting funds to relinquish the responsibility of Department of Commerce with respect to Internet domain name system functions,” appropriators said in a news release, which was the subject of two House hearings Wednesday. “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to relinquish the responsibility of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration with respect to Internet domain name system functions, including responsibility with respect to the authoritative root zone file and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority functions,” the draft text said. The subcommittee plans to mark up the bill Thursday at 10:30 a.m. in H-140 of the Capitol.