Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist warned today that failure to pass the long-delayed $328 billion omnibus FY 2004 appropriations bill will cut off millions in funding for new projects. Here’s coverage in the Washington Post. Failure to pass the legislation would force Congress to pass a “continuing resolution,” Frist says, which would freeze funding for government activities at last year’s spending level.
The bill, already passed in the House, faces opposition from Democrats in the Senate over controversial provisions including overtime pay, country-of-origin labeling for beef, and media consolidation rules.
Tied up in the bill is a $268 million funding increase for the National Science Foundation (5 percent over FY 2003), including a $24 million increase to NSF’s CISE division.
The Senate will return from recess next week.
CRA has more detail on the omnibus in the January 2004 edition of Computing Research News, which can now be found online!