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This week, the Department of Homeland Security released its environmental impact statement comparing several locations nationwide regarding the future site of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF).  After considering factors such as environmenta

Last week, Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh announced that the country would form a quasi-independent panel modeled on the U.S.

Two weeks ago, SSTI reviewed the TBED strategies states are advised to pursue as presented in the 2008 State New Economy Index released by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and the Kauffman Foundation (see the

Gov. Jim Douglas plans to merge the Vermont Departments of Economic Development and Housing and Community Affairs.

The Complete description of this opportunity and others are available at http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.

When one looks beyond the first few pages of many sections of the agencies’ fiscal year 2008 budget request summaries, the mental concept of a television rerun appears. As SSTI staff pored through the budget this week, several found ourselves saying, “Didn’t we read the same thing last year?”

In fiscal year 2008, President Bush proposes $11.42 billion total to support the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) across the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy’s Office of Science (DOE SC), and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology laboratories (NIST).

In this year’s State of the Union Address, President Bush announced that his FY 2008 budget request would contain funding to support research to eliminate the projected growth of automobile carbon dioxide emission within 10 years.

The Administration request of $89 billion for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) budget is predicated on passage of the Administration’s version of the 2007 Farm Bill proposals. As designed, the Administration's 2007 farm bill proposals would spend approximately $10 billion less than the 2002 farm bill spent over the past five years, according to the USDA press release.

The Administration's FY 2008 discretionary budget request for the Department of Commerce (DOC) is $6.55 billion, a decrease in discretionary spending of $76 million from the FY06 appropriation. The department’s full-time equivalent staff would increase by 4,700 people between FY06 and FY08.

 

Funding for every DOC program or office supporting state and local TBED and traditional economic development programs would be cut deeply or proposed for elimination.

 

The Administration’s FY 2008 budget request for the Department of Defense (DoD) totals $481.4 billion, an 11.3 percent increase over FY07. [Note: DoD’s FY07 appropriations bill was one of only two passed before the current fiscal year began. As a result, SSTI is able to provide comparisons between the FY08 request and the FY07 appropriations. Variance between FY08 request and FY07 appropriations is provided in parentheses.]

 

According to the U.S. Department of Education (ED), federal funding represents only 8.9 percent of America’s spending on elementary and secondary education during the 2006-07 school year. That share in FY 2008 would be $56 billion according to the Administration’s budget request for the agency.

The Department of Energy (DOE) budget request for FY 2008 totals $24.3 billion, a 3 percent increase above the FY07 request.