June 2004 Government Affairs Update

 

IN THIS ISSUE …

 

1. Federal Prison Industries Reform

2. Technology Talent Program

3. Flood Map Modernization

4. FCC Proposal _______________________________________________________________________

 

Federal Prison Industries Reform. ACSM had a small victory recently when the Federal Prison Industries Reform bill, S. 346 was approved favorably by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee without any harmful amendments. The bill will now move to the full Senate for consideration. Our Lobby Day participants played a key role in getting the legislation to this point. The FPI bill was one of the topics we discussed during our Lobby Day last month and all of the Senators we spoke with regarding the bill, except for Senator Durbin, approved the bill immediately. Stay tuned for results of the full Senate consideration in a future update.

 

Technology Talent Program. Senator Joe Lieberman, along with Senators Lugar, Landrieu, Domenici, Warner, Durbin and Bingaman recently called for the Senate Appropriations Committee to provide funding for the Technology Talent Program, which is a program aimed at increasing the number of graduates in math, science and engineering. The program provides competitive grants to colleges and universities to implement innovative ways of increasing graduates in the math and science field.

ACSM will be meeting with the Senators involved in pushing this program to find out if some of the funding can be funneled to the Trig-Star program.

 

Flood Map Modernization. The House of Representatives recently passed its FY-05 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security. Unfortunately, the funding for Flood Map Modernization is set at $150 million. This is a drop of $50 million from last year. The Senate Appropriations Committee passed its version of DHS bill and the funding for map modernization in that bill is set at $200 million. We will work to keep the funding at $200 million as the Senate bill is considered in the full Senate and we will work for the funding level to stay at $200 when the two bills come to conference.

 

FCC Proposal. ACSM recently received information from one of our members regarding a proposal by the FCC which would limit universal service fund subsidies for phone service in rural America. The proposal would limit subsidy support to one line per customer, or implement a “primary line restriction.” Secondary lines, such as those wireless carriers sometimes provide in rural areas, wouldn’t be supported. Additionally, the proposal eliminates the past practice of subsidizing multiple lines per home and businesses. This proposal would affect our members in rural areas who rely of multiple lines, e.g. phone, fax and internet, to run their businesses. ACSM will continue to monitor the status of the proposal.