Effort to Terminate Advanced Technology Program Fails

Twice One of the flash points between the Congress and the Clinton Administration has been the Commerce Department’s Advanced Technology Program. Repeatedly characterized by its critics as “corporate welfare,” and the target of the former chairman of the House Science Committee, Bob Walker (R-PA), the ATP has been contentious almost from the first day Republicans assumed leadership of the Congress. ATP has seemingly turned a new page on Capitol Hill as last week representatives twice rejected attempts to kill the program.

One of the best way to ensure a program’s death is to deny it funding in its appropriations bill. Indeed, earlier this year, the chairman of the House Commerce-Justice-State Appropriations Subcommittee, Harold Rogers (R-KY), said “It is my intention to zero out this program.” Rogers was angry about the shift of ATP funds by the administration (see FYI #45 .)

Since then, the House Science Committee won House passage of H.R. 1274, the National Institute of Standards and Technology Authorization Act. This legislation reworked some components of ATP. Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-PA) suggested that a more favorable climate existed for ATP when he stated during committee meeting, “unlike the previous [Science Committee] chair, who was philosophically opposed to the ATP, I am not” (see FYI #56 .)

It was this authorization bill that defenders of ATP cited during House consideration of H.R. 2267, the FY 1998 Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations Bill. The first move to undermine ATP came on an amendment offered by Rep. Tom Coburn (R-OK.) It would have shifted $74 million allocated for new ATP grants to juvenile justice programs. Despite the popularity of such programs, the House rejected this amendment by almost a hundred vote margin: 163 yes - 261 no.

The next day, Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN) offered another amendment to eliminate ATP by providing only $10 million for remaining obligations and to close out operations. This was rejected by a vote of 177-235.

Some (rounded-off) statistics on the two votes: 38% of all representatives voted to shift ATP funds to juvenile justice programs: 67% of Republicans and 8% of Democrats. 43% of all representatives voted to terminate ATP: 79% of Republicans and 5% of Democrats.

The House concluded work on this bill last night -- the last night of the old fiscal year. Money for the Commerce Departments, and most other programs of the federal government is being provided through a stopgap funding measure through October 23. Having suffered through constituent backlash from a government shutdown a few years ago, Congress has not included any extraneous policy riders in this continuing resolution.

The Senate passed its version of this bill on July 29. It provides $200 million for ATP, compared to the House figure of $185 million (see FYI #98 for details.) The way has now been cleared for a conference on the entire bill to resolve conflicts. For the fiscal year just ended, ATP received $225 million; the Clinton Administration requested $275.6 million for this new year. While the final FY 1998 outcome will be much less than what the administration requested, it will be much more than the “zero” originally envisioned by subcommittee chairman Rogers earlier this year.