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Senate Small Business Committee Want FAST, ROP Funded

March 21, 2003
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U.S. Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, has called on the Senate’s top appropriators to help reverse budget elimination of two key programs designed to strengthen the technological competitiveness of small businesses.

Snowe and a bipartisan group of 14 other senators released a letter calling on Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Ranking Member Robert Byrd (D-WV) to help identify new sources of funding “to alleviate the severe impact” of FY 2003 cuts in the Federal and State Technical Partnership (FAST) and Rural Outreach Programs (ROP) administered by the Small Business Administration. Both federal programs provide matching grants to state initiatives to help small businesses with technology development and commercialization.

A total of $3.5 million in combined funding for FAST and ROP were cut from the Conference Report on the Omnibus Appropriations Act, which was signed into law by the President on February 20. The Bush Administration had requested $3 million in FY03 for the SBIR FAST program and $500,000 for the SBIR Rural Outreach program, which provides grants to approximately 25 states to increase participation in the SBIR Program.

The Administration has requested $3.5 million for the two programs in its FY04 budget request.