A House appropriations bill would slate $36.7 million...

A House appropriations bill would slate $36.7 million for NTIA in FY2015, well below the $51 million the executive branch requested. The bill would allocate $8.35 billion for the Commerce Department, $95 million less than the White House requested but $71 million more than was enacted for FY2014. The House Appropriations Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee released the draft appropriations bill this week (http://1.usa.gov/R0JwHJ) and cleared the proposed budget unanimously Wednesday by voice vote. “For the administration of prior-year grants, recoveries and unobligated balances of funds previously appropriated are available for the administration of all open grants until their expiration,” the draft bill said in a section titled “Public Telecommunications Facilities, Planning and Construction.” Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker testified before Senate and House lawmakers early in April on these budget items. “To continue expanding broadband capacity and promoting policies to ensure a free and open Internet, the budget requests a total of $51 million” for NTIA to “support increasing wireless broadband access and critical telecommunications policy coordination,” Pritzker had said (CD April 11 p5). House lawmakers emphasized the bill preserves core priority spending, and “bolstering cybersecurity” is one such priority, subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf, R-Va., said in a statement. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would receive $46 billion, equivalent to what’s estimated to come in from fees and $434 million above FY2014. The National Institute of Standards and Technology would receive $856 million, $5.8 million above FY2014 and $44.2 million less than what the White House proposed.