IP: effort continues to rescind funds for next generation Internet

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

Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 20:37:02 -0400
From: David Lytel <david () axess net>


Among the most important HIDDEN STORIES in the spate of end-of-session Congressional legislation is the continuing 
attempt to rescind funds that the Congress has already made available to fund the Next Generation Internet initiative.  
Senator Trett Lott failed in his attempt to add the measure to the Internet Tax Freedom Act, but White House 
negotiators report that the Republicans have not yet given up.  The Congress has passed and the President has signed a 
bill AUTHORIZING money to be spent on NGI, but this should not be confused with the actual appropriation of funds.  If 
this action is successful, ONE PERSON (Washington attorney William Bode) stands to receive $20M in taxpayer funds, 
because the rescinsion action would cause the NSF to lose a lawsuit brought against it.  The lawsuit alleges that a 
surcharge on domain name registrations, which was collected in an Intellectual Infrastructure Fund to invest in new 
networking technologies, was a tax that had not been authorized by the Congress.  Earlier this
 year the Congress took the step of authorizing this surcharge on domain names as a tax.  If this rescinsion succeeds 
it will be a huge blow to the efforts of the NSF and other government agencies to invest in new networking technologies 
and give support to the development of high bandwidth applications.  Particularly hard hit will be the nation's 
universities, which stand to lose $60M or more in support for high speed networking, cutting edge network research, and 
applications development.  Efforts to come up with innovative new ways to reduce congestion on the Internet will 
themselves be significantly delayed.  If this provision gets into the Omnibus Appropriation bill the Congress is 
expected to pass then it will get signed into law, which would be a huge step backwards for the development of the 
Internet.

For more on this story please call David Lytel, a former advisor in the White House Office of Science and Technology 
Policy who now heads Sherpa Consulting Group.  Telephone 1-888-GUIDING or 315-473-8996.

-- David Lytel