IP: Washington Update 2-09-98

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

FARNET'S WASHINGTON UPDATE --- FEBRUARY 9, 1998=09


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IN THIS ISSUE:


NSF RELEASES 1999 BUDGET REQUEST; EXPRESSES OPTIMISM FOR NGI FUNDING
DESPITE RECENT COURT INJUNCTION


February 2 - National Science Foundation (NSF) director Dr. Neal Lane
released his agency's 1999 budget request
(http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/forum/lane/nl980202.htm) to reporters and the
public last Monday. Heartened by what Lane termed the "unprecedented vote
of confidence by President Clinton", the NSF is requesting a ten percent
increase (over $340 million) compared to the 1998 appropriation. If
approved by Congress, the total NSF budget for 1999 would be the largest in
the agency's history, just under $3.8 billion.


According to Lane, newly budgeted funds would be spent on a "diverse array
of activities." He emphasized new partnerships with the U.S. Department of
Education (http://www.ed.gov/); $107 million has been requested for
NSF/DoEd joint initiatives with $25 million slated specifically for
research on educational and training technologies. The primary goal of this
research is to identify the most cost-effective means of using technology
to facilitate student learning.=20


The optimistic potential for information technology was highlighted
throughout Lane's presentation. The NSF plans to devote $75 million to
Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence (KDI) programs; "KDI is a
foundation-wide effort that aims to discover, collect, represent, transmit
and apply information". It encompasses several major initiatives, including
the improvement and expansion of the very high-speed Backbone Network
Service (vBNS). (vBNS is a nation-wide network that supports
high-performance, high-bandwidth research applications. Designed to
facilitate communications among the science and research communities, it
currently connects 5 supercomputer centers and 17 universities.  Currently,
over 47 universities have received NSF grants to connect to the network.)
(http://www.vbns.net/)=20


Another major component of KDI is the NSF's portion of the Next Generation
Internet (http://www.ngi.gov) initiative. The NSF has requested $25 million
for NGI for fiscal year 1999. In 1998, Congress appropriated $23 million to
the NSF for NGI research.  That money was to come from what has been termed
the "Preservation Assessment Fund", currently maintained by Network
Solutions, Inc. and created through fees associated with domain name
registration.  (By agreement with the NSF, Network Solutions has been the
exclusive registrar for generic top-level domain names since 1993.


(Although the contract agreement expires next month, it may be extended for
an additional six months if no alternative domain name registration system
is in place.) (http://www.farnet.org/contents/update/1997/1003.html) It was
agreed that 30% of the fees collected from domain name registration would
be placed into an infrastructure development fund with the government
controlling how the monies would be spent. As of October 1997, the fund
contained approximately $37 million.)


That $23 million is in limbo.  The same day the NSF unveiled its 1999
budget request, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan issued a preliminary
injunction preventing the NSF from spending any of the $23 million
appropriated by Congress to the NSF for NGI research during fiscal year=
 1998.


The injunction is the result of a lawsuit filed on behalf of certain domain
name registrants against NSI and NSF this past October. The plaintiffs
claim that the part of the registration fee set aside for the "preservation
and enhancement of the Internet" is an unconstitutional tax and should be
refunded to the domain name registrants (http://www.bode.com/PRESS.htm).
For a preliminary injunction to issue, the moving party must demonstrate,
among other things, a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of
the claim. Judge Hogan was convinced that the domain name registrant
plaintiffs met this criteria: "Plaintiffs have made a substantial showing
that the Preservation Assessment can be considered a tax=85. Since there is
no dispute that the Preservation Assessment Fund exists to pursue general,
public Internet projects and goals, plaintiffs have made a strong showing
that the assessment is collected for a public purpose, and not to defray
defendant's regulatory costs." =20


The case means that the NSF cannot -- for now -- spend any of the $23
million allocated for its NGI research during FY1998.  Despite this
setback, the NSF appears to be optimistic that it will obtain significant
funding for its portion of NGI -- and broader programs under the heading of
KDI -- in the near future. =20
               =20
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