Gus Seligmann
NCC Washington Update, Vol. 2, #9, March 20, 1996
by Page Putnam Miller, Director of the National Coordinating
Committee for the Promotion of History <pagem@CAPACCESS.ORG>
1. FY'97 Funding for NEH
2. President's FY'97 Requests for the National Archives and NHPRC
3. President's Budget for other Cultural Agencies
4. CIA's Historical Review Panel Releases Report
1. FY'97 Funding for NEH -- At the March 6 House Appropriations
Hearing Sheldon Hackney, the Chair of NEH, indicated that the
President was requesting $136 million in FY'97 for NEH, an increase
over the FY'96 level of $110 million but still considerably less than
the FY'95 level of $172 million. The NEH has now made available the
following breakdown of that amount: $30 million for Federal/State
Partnership; $21 million for Preservation and Access; $19.5 million
for Public and Enterprise Programs; $ 30 million for Research and
Education; $11.5 million for Challenge Grant Funds; $6.25 million for
Treasury Funds; and $17.6 million for Administrative Funds.
On March 19 the American Council for the Arts held an Advocacy Day in
Washington. Legislative aides from the offices of Senators James
Jeffords (R-VT) and Claiborne Pell (D-RI) and Representative Sidney
Yates (D-IL) spoke at a legislative briefing. So me of the points
made at that briefing were: there is strong bipartisan support for
the continuation of NEH in the Senate; the Republican Caucus in the
House voted last year to phase out NEH in three years, and there still
is considerable support for that position among House Republicans; it
is most unlikely that any reauthorization legislation for NEH will be
passed in this session; Representative Ralph Regula (R-OH), who chairs
the House Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Committee, has
indicated that he does not know if he can get this year, as he did
last year, a "protected rule" from the House Rules Committee to allow
funding for NEH without authorization legislation; when the FY'97
appropriations for NEH comes before the House for a vote this summer,
it is expected that there will again be amendments calling for the
elimination of the NEH and NEA; with the Interior and Related
Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee having a reduced amount to divide
among all the programs under its jurisdiction, the endowments may be
lucky to get an FY'97 budget of $99.5 million. The concluding
observation was that there is much work to be done, particularly with
moderate Republicans.
2. President's FY'97 Request for the National Archives and NHPRC --
The President has requested $196.964 million in FY'97 for the National
Archives. This is a small reduction from this years level of $199.925
million. Under this proposed budget operating expenses would remain
at basically the same level. There were several one time additions to
last year's budget -- such as the $4.5 million that Senator Bob Kerrey
(D-NE) sponsored to increase electronic access and a $1.2 million in
repairs at the Johnson Presidential Library -- which are not in the
FY'97 budget.
The President has requested $4 million in FY'97 for the National
Historical Publications and Records Commission. It is currently
funded at $5 million.
3. President's Budget Recommendations for Other Cultural Agencies --
The President has requested $23 million in FY'97 for the Institute of
Museum Services (IMS). The FY'96 level for IMS is $21 million. In
historic preservation, the President has requested $33.29 million for
the combined programs of state historic preservation, Indian tribes
and historically Black colleges. This is basically level funding for
these historic preservation programs. There is an increase in the
President's request for the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The Trust is funded this year at $3.5 million and the request for
FY'97 is $5 million, which is still below the FY'95 level of $7
million. Funding for the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation is
$2.5 million, level funding. For the Smithsonian the request is $384
million, an increase from the FY'95 level of $363 million. The
Fulbright Scholarly Exchange program is at $111 million in the
President's budget -- this is compared with $117 million in FY'95 and
$96 million this year. For the Fulbright Hays Program which focuses
on area studies, the President is requesting the same level in FY'97
as the program had in FY'95.
Since some observers are saying that the President's budget was dead
on arrival, there are few indications that the above budget
recommendations will be passed. However, these budget amounts do
indicate the support of the President for cultural programs and
provide a beginning point for debate over the FY'97 budgets for these
programs.
4. CIA's Historical Review Panel Releases Report -- On February 5 the
newly constituted CIA Historical Review Panel met for the first time.
On March 6 John Lewis Gaddis, a member of the panel and a professor of
history at Ohio University on leave this year at the Wilson Center,
sent to John Deutch, the Director of Central Intelligence, a report
summarizing the results of the meeting. After a number of
presentations in the morning, the panel went into executive session in
the afternoon and formulated its observations and recommendations.
While the report lays out a number of recommendations regarding a plan
for declassification of materials, the report stated: "First priority
within such a plan should go to transferring early CIA records to the
National Archives and making them available to researchers. The
Panel feels strongly that, although commendable in themselves, the
History Staff's publications as well as its cooperation with the
Department of State's Foreign Relations series do not substitute for
the declassification and opening of the Agency's records in bulk form
and in substantial quantity, so that non-government scholars will be
in a position to make their own judgments about representativeness and
relative significance." The panel reaffirmed the recommendations of
the CIA's predecessor historical review panel which had called for the
declassification of CIA records according to the principles of "top
down," referring to high level policy records, and "oldest first."
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