On July 1, 276 American historians sent a letter to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board in opposition to a proposal to license a casino located one-half mile from the Gettysburg National Military Park. Beyond the individual signatories, the American Historical Association, National Coalition for History, National Council on Public History, Organization of American Historians, Society for Military History and Southern Historical Association sent a separate letter of opposition to the Gaming Board.

Although the proposed casino site along the Emmitsburg Road lies outside the current administrative boundaries of Gettysburg National Military Park, it would be on land identified as historically sensitive by the American Battlefield Protection Program, an arm of the National Park Service. The application before the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board would retrofit an existing family-friendly hotel complex into a gambling resort with an initial 600 slot machines in addition to table games.

One of the major issues facing the new 112th Congress when it convenes in January will be consideration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). The law was last reauthorized in 2001 during the Bush administration under the rubric of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Since the law’s enactment a major flaw has been the over-emphasis placed on reading and math at the expense of other subjects, such as history.

In fiscal year 2002, due to the leadership of Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), Congress authorized the “Teaching American History” (TAH) grants program in the Department of Education. Thanks to Senator Byrd, nearly $1 billion of federal dollars have been allocated over the past decade to improve K-12 history education. A child who was in the first grade when the program started in 2001 would now be a junior in high school. So it is no exaggeration to say Senator Byrd’s love of American history has been passed on to an entire generation of America’s school children. Among his many accomplishments, that is one of his greatest legacies. But with his recent passing the program that he nurtured for so long is now in danger.

TAH improves the quality of instruction in American history. Grant awards assist elementary and secondary schools in implementing research-based methods for improving the quality of instruction, professional development, and teacher education in American history. Funds are used for competitive grants that are allocated to local education agencies (LEAs) though funding proposals must include a partnership component with an educational non-profit and/or history-based organization. Advocacy by my predecessor Bruce Craig was instrumental in getting the partnership requirement included into law.

While Congress will not tackle the ESEA reauthorization until 2011, activity has already begun in earnest as numerous hearings have been held throughout 2010 in both houses. Draft bills are currently being developed in the House and Senate in anticipation of early action on the issue next year.

In the case of the Teaching American History grants program, the Obama administration’s fiscal 2011 budget message to Congress called into question the degree to which the program has reached districts and teachers most in need of federally funded professional development and also stressed the need for better evaluation of the program’s effectiveness. One of the issues that has plagued the TAH program since its inception has been the inability to rigorously assess and evaluate whether teachers, and ultimately students, are benefitting from the program.

On March 15, the White House released “A Blueprint for Reform,” which details the administration’s plans for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Like NCLB, the reform proposal continues to prioritize reading and math over other subjects.

President Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget request to Congress for the Department of Education proposed consolidating 38 existing K–12 education programs into 11 new programs. Under the administration’s budget request, grants for history education would now be part of a new program called “Effective Teaching and Learning for a Well-Rounded Education.” Teaching American History Grants would be consolidated into this new program and would no longer exist as a free-standing budget line item.

The administration proposed $265 million in funding in fiscal 2011 for the new initiative. Although the fiscal 2011 budget request includes a $38.9 million increase in funding to support teaching and learning in arts, history, civics, foreign languages, geography, and economics, the administration proposes to combine eight subject-specific grant programs into a single competitive grant program.

Unfortunately, under the proposed competitive grant program the various subjects would be pitted against each other for scarce resources. Such an approach could threaten the ability of schools and districts to provide each student with a well-rounded education, a result that seems to be the exact opposite of the administration’s intent.

In years past, the late Senator Byrd always ensured that the program received a stable level of funding, usually around $119 million per fiscal year. In the fiscal 2011 Labor, HHS and Education funding bill (S. 3686) passed in July by the Senate Appropriations Committee, the last one in which Senator Byrd was able to exert his influence, the TAH received level funding of $119 million. The administration had requested zero funding for the program in FY 11, removing it as a separate budget line item.

Given the budget deficit problem, it is expected funding levels for all federal discretionary programs will face major cuts when the administration’s proposed FY 2012 budget is released early next year. In June, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag issued a directive ordering non-security federal agencies to submit a FY2012 budget proposal five percent below the agency’s FY 11 budget as proposed by the administration. In another directive, agencies were directed to identify for termination or significant reduction of “low priority” programs and subprograms that constitute at least five percent of the agency’s discretionary budget.

In June, a meeting was convened by the ASCD (formerly the Association for the Study of Curriculum and Development), an education membership organization focused largely on K–12 issues. The meeting included representatives from several organizations whose communities would be affected by the Obama administration’s Blueprint for Reform for the reauthorization of the ESEA.

On July 29, the National Coalition for History and 20 major history and education organizations, representing a wide array of subject areas, released consensus recommendations for how the federal government can better support core subjects beyond the No Child Left Behind Act’s singular focus on student performance in reading and math.

The various organizations agreed that discrete funding streams, such as TAH, should be created for each of the disciplines to ensure that each retains federal support individually and that all receive a minimum level of resources reflecting collective support for a well-rounded education. Equally important, they decided, grant competitions should occur within disciplines, not between them.

The organizations endorsing the Well-Rounded Education statement represent hundreds of thousands of educators in the disciplines of history, languages, arts, government and other subjects. The National Coalition for History endorsed the recommendation in addition to ten individual member organizations in the Coalition. These include the American Association for State and Local History, American Historical Association, Association for Documentary Editing, Civil War Preservation Trust, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, History Channel, National Council for the Social Studies, National Council on Public History, Organization of American Historians and the Society for Military History. Several other NCH membership organizations have endorsements pending before their leadership and are expected to sign on in the near future.

Over the coming months, the National Coalition for History will be carrying the message to lawmakers and the administration to preserve the Teaching American History grants program.

The text of the recommendation is below:

Consensus Recommendations for a Well-Rounded Education

The Obama administration’s fiscal 2011 budget request and Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) blueprint propose to consolidate eight grant programs that support teaching and learning in the areas of the arts, foreign languages, civics, history, geography, and economics into a single competitive grant—the Effective Teaching and Learning for a Well-Rounded Education program. This program would be available to high-need school districts, a high-need district in partnership with a state education agency, or a high-need district in partnership with other entities. However, the proposal puts content areas in competition with one another for funding and recognition and, thereby, further reduces the likelihood that students in high-need schools receive a truly comprehensive, well-rounded education.

We believe each student must receive equal access to a credible, comprehensive, and well-rounded education that includes instruction in all core academic subjects delivered at appropriate times throughout the school experience. “Core academic subjects” are defined as those listed in ESEA—English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography. We believe, moreover, that credible and comprehensive instruction should also apply to physical education and health education.

Each of these subjects is crucial to a student’s learning in its own right, and no single subject should be considered more important than another. Indeed, the combination of the subjects and the interrelationship among disciplines enhances learning and understanding for each student. Moreover, a well-rounded education provides students with the academic preparation and knowledge to succeed in the increasingly global marketplace and in our own complex and ever changing society.

A well-rounded education is an absolute necessity for any graduate to be considered college, career, and citizenship ready. Delivery of a well-rounded education must be reflected in standards, assessments, accountability systems, and public reporting of achievement and must take into account the needs of students and the expectations of educators, employers and public officials in the global environment of the 21st century. In addition, flexibility for schools, local districts, and communities to customize education to meet their unique circumstances is essential.

To achieve these goals, the undersigned organizations call upon the Obama administration and Congress to:

1. Include all elements of a well-rounded education in any definition of college-,
career-, and citizenship-ready standards.

2. Maintain discrete funding streams for each of these worthy subject areas to ensure that each retains federal support individually and that all receive a minimum level of resources reflecting collective support for a well-rounded education.

3. Promote grant competitions within disciplines, not among them, which prioritizes underserved or high-need schools and students and emphasizes best practices, scalability, and cross-subject collaboration and integration.

4. Develop a rigorous evaluation process, including significant input from professional educators, to measure the effectiveness of the funded activities and to propose improvements in the respective grant programs.

5. Establish meaningful public reporting and accountability requirements regarding student achievement in each of these disciplines at the school, district, and state level.

To qualify, students must demonstrate superior ability and achievement, exceptional promise, and financial need. The Department of Education estimates it will have funding available to award 33 fellowships with an average grant of $43,989.

To see the Federal Register notice announcing the opening of the application process, click here.

Eight cultural and educational institutions around the country will host public forums designed to share the best of recent humanities research with members of the general public. New ideas coming out of these forums – ranging from “cyber-civility” to the cultural legacy of Timbuktu – will also form the basis for future educational and cultural programs that NEH intends to make available nationwide as part of its larger Bridging Cultures initiative. After each forum, participants will work with educators and members of state humanities councils to produce materials such as books, videos, exhibits, and other public programming to disseminate its content to regional and national audiences.

NEH Chairman Leach’s signature initiative, Bridging Cultures, highlights the role of the humanities in enhancing understanding and respect for diverse cultures and subcultures within America’s borders and around the globe. Building on a long tradition of support for excellent scholarship, NEH is renewing its focus on the need to bridge gaps in Americans’ understanding of world history, literature, philosophy, religion, archeology, language, and law.

A combined $1.7 million was awarded to the following recipients of the NEH’s 2010 Bridging Cultures: Planning and Implementation Grants for Academic Forums and Programs Development Workshops Grants:

• American Bar Association (Chicago, IL) plans to partner with the Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago, the Newberry Library, the Center for Civic Engagement at Northwestern University, and the Illinois Humanities Council in convening a public forum on the tensions between civility and free expression. Moderators such as law professor Jeffrey Rosen, “cyber-civility” expert Justin Pachin, and legal journalist Dahlia Lithwick will engage an audience of scholars, legal professionals, civic organization leaders, K-12 educators, and students in discussion of such questions as: “What is civility?,” “What roles to norms play in fostering civility,” and “When do appeals to civility inhibit the free expression of ideas?” Scheduled for March 2011. ($247,158)
• California Council for the Humanities (Los Angeles, CA) plans a conference and workshop at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy and the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles that will examine the varied meanings of civility throughout American history and its relationship to democracy. Participants will explore topics such as the history of contentious conversations, the role of compromise in democracy, the difference between incivility and impassioned dissent, and the future of public discourse in the digital age. Public outreach programs and educational materials developed during the forum will be incorporated in the Council’s Democracy Project, a two-year statewide initiative addressing the evolving nature of democracy in the United States. Scheduled for March 2011. ($250,000)
• City Lore, Inc. (New York, NY) plans to partner with the Poets House in New York in staging a public forum that will use poetry as a lens for understanding the diversity of Muslim cultures and histories throughout the world. The day-long event will combine public performance with scholarly discussion of works by Muslim poets from Yemen, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, Mali, and Somalia and explore themes such as the relationship between poetry and society, poetry and gender, and poetry and history. Scheduled for March 2011. ($175,000)
• George Mason University (Fairfax, VA) Center for Global Islamic Studies, in partnership with the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, plans to convene a two-day forum focusing on the political, cultural, artistic, and social achievements of Muslim societies from 1300-1900 and their role in the formation of global modernity. Leading scholars of Islamic history and culture will present recent scholarship on the period and, in a concluding workshop to be held in conjunction with the Virginia Festival of the Book, will work with educators, artists, museum personnel, and journalists to develop programming that will disseminate the forum’s content to broader audiences in Virginia and the nation. Scheduled for March 2011. ($219,549)
• National Constitution Center (Philadelphia, PA) plans to host a public symposium that will convene political activists, journalists, and scholars from fields such as history, political science, sociology, law, and communications to discuss the role of dissent and protest in American culture. A keynote address, small group discussion sessions, and large town-hall exchange will foster dialogue on the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, the concept of civic virtue, the importance of dissent and deliberation in America’s constitutional democracy, and the ways in which particular rhetorical modes and media forms can contribute or detract from productive public discourse. Scheduled for March 2011. ($249,887)
• University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (Minneapolis–St. Paul, MN) plans a colloquium exploring the influences of Islamic cultural and intellectual traditions on the development of Western humanist and scientific thought. The conference will feature a keynote address, a dramatic performance and discussion of a 12th-century Muslim novel, Hayy ibn Yaqzan, that served as the inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, followed by five panel discussions focusing on literature, science, architecture and religion, art and aesthetics, and the use of new media in artistic and cultural production. Scheduled for February 2011. ($170,439)
• Tougaloo College (Jackson, MS) plans to build a forum around an exhibition at the International Museum of Muslim Cultures on “The Legacy of Timbuktu: Wonders of the Written Word” that will trace the connections between the culture and history of Muslim West Africa, Mississippi, and the United States through an examination of literature, texts, and music. With a focus on two central themes, “Islamic West Africa and Literacy” and “American Blues music and Muslim roots,” participants will examine historic texts such as the autobiography of Omar Ibn Said, a West African Islamic scholar who was captured in 1807 and sold into slavery in North Carolina, and discuss scholarship describing similarities between early blues music and the Muslim call to prayer. Scheduled for February 2011. ($218,856)
• Washington State University (Pullman, WA) Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy, in conjunction with Humanities Washington and the Idaho Humanities Council, plans a public forum exploring the state of civility in American democracy. Humanities scholars will explore how conceptions of civility have evolved over time and how it relates to social inequality and political power, how civility is affected by increasing ethnic and cultural diversity, how civility may be fostered or conditioned through public art and architecture or influenced through changing modes of communication, and examine whether an insistence on certain forms of civil behavior are necessary or detrimental to the institutions and practices of democratic governance. A workshop following the two-day event will bring together scholars, librarians, filmmakers, and K-12 educators to develop curricula, museum exhibits, library programs and online resources around the theme of civility. Scheduled for March 2011. ($212,735)

The alliance is an outgrowth of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), which the Library has administered since 2000. In establishing the program, Congress directed the Library to work with other federal agencies and a variety of additional communities to develop a national approach to digital preservation. NDIIPP has achieved substantial success though partnering with more than 170 institutions to provide access to a diverse national collection of digital content. This work demonstrates that a collective effort can achieve far more than individual institutions working alone.

The NDSA will focus on several goals. It will develop improved preservation standards and practices; work with experts to identify categories of digital information that are most worthy of preservation; and take steps to incorporate content into a national collection. It will provide national leadership for digital-preservation education and training. The new organization will also provide communication and outreach for all aspects of digital preservation.

The NDSA will launch with a core set of founding members drawn from current NDIIPP project partners. Those members will develop a roadmap for immediate action, including a process for expanding membership. For more information, visit www.digitalpreservation.gov/ndsa/.

This funding will support a wide variety of projects, including the production and development of radio and television programs, digital scholarly resources, professional development for teachers and college faculty, and the development and staging of museum and library exhibitions. NEH grants will also help institutions improve and secure long-term support for their humanities programs and resources, and support state humanities council programs exploring significant events and themes in American history.

This funding cycle also marks the first grant awards as part of the NEH’s new Bridging Cultures initiative (see related story).

This award cycle, institutions and independent scholars in 41 states and the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, Northern Marianas, and the Virgin Islands will receive NEH support. Complete state-by-state listings of grants are available here (42-page PDF).

Selected projects have received a We the People designation for their efforts to strengthen the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture. In this cycle, grants were awarded in the following categories:

• We The People Project Grants for State Humanities Councils support programs sponsored by state humanities councils that explore significant events and themes in American history and culture, and advance knowledge of the principles that define America.
• Digital Humanities Start-up Grants encourage innovations in the digital humanities by supporting the planning stages of projects that advance humanities research, education, preservation, access, and public programming through the use of technology.
• Summer Seminars and Institutes for College and University Teachers Grants support intensive two- to six-week projects in which fifteen to twenty-five college and university faculty members, working with scholarly experts, engage in collegial study of significant texts and topics in the humanities.
• Summer Seminars and Institutes for School Teachers Grants support intensive two- to six-week projects in which fifteen to thirty school teachers, working with scholarly experts, engage in collegial study of significant texts and topics in the humanities.
• Landmarks of American History and Culture: Workshops for School Teachers support a series of one-week workshops for K-12 educators that address central themes and topics in American history, government, literature, art history, and other humanities fields related to historic landmarks.
• Landmarks of American History and Culture: Workshops for Community College Faculty (WTP) support a series of one-week workshops, conducted by leading scholars, for community college educators in which participants study central issues in American history related to historic landmarks, enhancing both their knowledge and their ability to teach.
• America’s Historical and Cultural Organizations: Planning & Implementation Grants support traveling or long-term museum exhibitions, library-based projects, interpretation of historical places or areas, websites, and other project formats that engage audiences in exploring humanities ideas and questions. Planning grants develop the content, interpretive approach, and formats of projects; implementation grants support their final development, design, and production.
• Interpreting America’s Historic Places: Planning & Implementation Grants support public humanities projects that exploit the evocative power of historic places to explore stories, ideas, and beliefs that deepen our understanding of our lives and our world. Planning grants develop the content, format, and design of projects; implementation grants support the final preparation of a project for presentation to the public.
• America’s Media Makers: Development & Production Grants support media projects, including radio, television, and digital technology projects, that explore significant events, figures, or developments in the humanities. Development grants enable media producers to collaborate with scholars to develop the humanities content and to prepare programs for production; production grants support the preparation of a program for distribution.
• Bridging Cultures: Planning and Implementation Grants for Academic Forums and Program Development Grants support the planning and implementation of an academic forum and workshop that explore the ways in which cultures from around the globe, as well as the myriad subcultures within America’s borders, have influenced American society.
• NEH on the Road Grants help small sites defray the cost of hosting an NEH traveling exhibition.
• Challenge Grants strengthen the humanities by encouraging non-federal sources of support and helping institutions secure long-term improvements in and support for their humanities programs and resources. Recipients are required to match NEH funds on a three-to-one or, in some cases, two-to-one basis.

• Madison County, Ky., received $29,500 to buy the Moody Tract of the Richmond, Battlefield. Confederate forces won the Battle of Richmond, Ky. fought on August 29 and 30, 1862.
• The city of Franklin, Tenn. received a grant of $492,000 to acquire land at the Franklin Battlefield.
• The North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources received grants to acquire two segments of the Bentonville Battlefield: $306,000 for the Nell Howell Tract and $150,000 for the Joyce Britt-Halliwell Tract.

State and local governments received a total of $977,500 from the National Park Service. Priority was given to battlefields listed in the National Park Service’s Civil War Sites Advisory Commission Report on the Nation’s Civil War Battlefields. Funds are awarded based on the significance of the land to be acquired and the availability of required non-federal matching funds.

Congress appropriated $9 million in fiscal year 2010 from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to help non-federal entities acquire and preserve Civil War battlefields. State and local governments, or qualified non-profit historic preservation organizations acting through an agency of state or local government, can submit proposals, which are accepted year-round and reviewed monthly or quarterly, depending on the degree of priority of the battlefield in question.

The Teaching American History grant program aims to enhance teachers’ understanding of American history through intensive professional development, including study trips to historic sites and mentoring with professional historians and other experts. Projects are required to partner with organizations that have broad knowledge of American history, such as libraries, museums, nonprofit historical or humanities organizations, and higher education institutions.

History is one of the core academic subjects under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Teaching American History grants are funded for a three-year period. They will be awarded to school districts in 40 states, the District of Columbia, and American Samoa.

1. Fiscal Year 2011 Financial Service and General Government Appropriations bill (S. 3677) (S. Comm. Rept. 111-238)

On July 29, the Senate Appropriations Committee cleared the FY 2011 Financial Service and General Government (FS&GG) Appropriations bill that includes funding for the National Archives (NARA) and National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

On the same day, the House Financial Service and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee cleared its version of the bill.

Senate FS&GG FY 11Appropriations Bill

National Archives and Records Adminsitration

NARA would receive $432.8 million in FY 2011, $24.1 million less than the FY 2010 appropriation of $456.9 million, and $13.5 million less than the President’s request for FY 11. This is approximately a 5.4% cut.

• NHPRC:
  The NHPRC funding level is $10 million. That is $3 million less than last year, but the same as the Administration requested for the program. Last year’s budget included a one-time directed spending allocation of $4.5 million for a project to put the papers of the Founding Fathers on-line. So the actual amount that was available for the NHPRC’s core programs was $9.25 million. As with last year, the administrative costs for NHPRC are now factored into NARA’s operating expenses budget so the full $10 million goes to grants.
• Operating Expenses
  Operating Expenses funding increased by $8.9 million, the same as the President’s request. The increase goes to fund and equip the new National Declassification Center, the Holdings Protection program, the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) and to “expand the archival staff to build a cadre of new technology savvy archivists.” OGIS is the new FOIA ombudsman office and the committee directed that it receive $3 million of the increase.
• Electronic Records Archive (ERA)
  The Electronic Records Archive was cut $13.5 million from last year’s budget—and the President’s request—of $85.5 million. While the Appropriations Committee clearly stated its support for ERA, it felt that “that NARA’s expenditure plan submissions have not clearly identified the specific functions to be delivered through specific spending. This has hampered the Committee’s ability to assess the extent of progress on ERA that should be expected as a result of the spending. In its review of NARA’s fiscal year 2010 expenditure plan for ERA, GAO noted that NARA had not detailed what capabilities will be delivered by the final two ERA phases, or increments.”
• Repairs and Restoration
  This account sustained a $15.6 million cut, from $27.5 million last year down to a level of $11.8 million. However, this reduction reflects the completion of a major repair project at the FDR Presidential Library that was funded during fiscal year 2010. The $11.8 million includes $6.8 million for base requirements and $5 million for the top priority project in the Capitol Improvements Plan, the National Archives Experience Phase II.

House FS&GG FY 2011 Appropriations Bill

NARA’s funding bill in the House has only cleared the subcommittee level in the Appropriations Committee. The program funding levels within agencies are embargoed until after the FS&GG FY 11 bill is passed by the full House Appropriations Committee. So no breakdown is available to the level detailed in the Senate Appropriations FS&GG bill. Markup of the bill by the House Appropriations will not occur until after the August congressional recess.

NARA’s FY 11 budget would be cut by $30.6 million from the FY 10 level of $456.9 million, down to $426.3 million. That amount is $20 million less than the President’s FY 11 budget request and is approximately a 6.7% cut.

2. Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies FY 2011 Appropriations Bill

On July 22, the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee marked up the FY 2011 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies spending bill. As noted above with NARA, line-item detail for the agencies covered by this bill will not be available until the full House Appropriations Committee meets to review the measure. No date has yet been set for a Full House Committee markup. In the Senate, the Interior bill has not yet cleared the subcommittee level in the Appropriations Committee.

• National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
  The Subcommittee approved funding of $170 million for both the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), an increase of $2.5 million over the current year (FY 2010), and $9 million above the level requested by the Obama Administration for FY 2011. The National Endowment for the Arts received the same amount.
• Smithsonian Institution
  The Smithsonian Institution would receive a $37 million increase over FY 10–the same as the President’s request–up to a level of $798 million.
• National Park Service
  The Park Service’s FY 11 budget would increase by only $21 million, up to a level of $2.7 billion.

3. Senate Labor, HHS and Education FY 2011 Appropriations bill (S. 3686) (S. Rept. 111-243)

• Teaching American History Grants
  The Teaching American History grants program at the Department of Education would be level funded at $119 million. This is $119 million above the President’s request, which had zeroed out the program pending its inclusion in the “Well Rounded Education” initiative.
• Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS):
  The IMLS would receive $271 million in FY 11. This is a cut of $11 million from the FY 10 level of $282 million. However, it is $5million more than Obama FY budget request. Programs funded under the Museum Service Act would receive $33.6 million, the same as last year. Programs funded under the Library Services Technology Act would receive $213.6 million, the same as last year.

4. House Labor, HHS and Education FY 2011 Appropriations bill

In the House, FY 11 funding bill has only cleared the Labor, HHS & Education appropriations subcommittee. At that level, the macro number for each agency is released and it is not broken down to the programmatic level. As a result, the funding level for the Teaching American History Grants program is not yet known.

The IMLS would receive $266 million, a $16 million reduction from FY10 and the same as the Administration’s FY 11 budget request.

One final note, Congress is not expected to complete action on the budget before FY 11 begins on October 1. As usually happens, Congress will pass a series of continuing resolutions that will fund federal agencies at the FY 10 level. And, it is anticipated that few of the actual appropriations bills will be passed separately, but will be rolled into a huge omnibus spending bill at some point.

The wild card in the appropriations process this year is the elections in November. Should the Republicans take control of either body any efforts by the Democrats to pass an omnibus spending bill during a post-election lame duck session would be stymied. So there is no way to predict at this point what FY 11 agency funding levels will be.

Although no official reason was given as to why the bill was pulled from the agenda at the last minute, apparently the Republican members of the committee had planned to offer a number of crippling amendments. These included cutting the authorization level for the NHPRC in the bill to $10 million and limiting eligibility and the scope of projects the NHPRC could fund.

For example, days before the hearing Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) introduced H.R. 5865, the “Stop Wasting Archive Grants Act of 2010.” The bill would prohibit the Archivist of the United States from making “grants to preserve or publish non-Federal records.”

On July 1, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and the National Archives had cleared the bill by a vote of 6–1.

The Senate has already passed a bill (S. 2872) to reauthorize the NHPRC at a $10 million for fiscal years 2010—2014 (S. Rept. 111-213).