[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 6, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S898-S899]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES

  Mr. PELL. Mr. President, I strongly oppose any further reductions in 
funding the National Endowment for the Humanities. The agency has 
responded to a 36-percent budget cut for fiscal year 1996 with major 
restructuring of programs and staff. Using the House appropriations 
figures contained in the last two continuing resolutions, NEH is now 
operating at a 40-percent reduction--$99.5 million instead of the 
anticipated $110 million.
  The agency has already eliminated 90 positions from its 260-person 
staff, streamlined its administrative structure, and cut programs. The 
suspended programs include: archaeology projects, summer stipends for 
teachers, dissertation grants, the NEH/National Science Foundation 
grants, the Kettering Foundation partnership, and, most disturbing to 
me, the National Conversation initiative. Further staff reductions are 
now probable.
  The recent furlough and uncertainty over its budget is preventing the 
agency from planning, carrying out its mission, and ensuring that the 
taxpayers dollars are spent wisely. For example, NEH has had to cancel 
peer review panels. As NEH can fund only 18 percent of the more than 
8,500 applications it receives each year, competition for funding is 
fierce. Ensuring that these funds are awarded to the best proposals is 
a responsibility that NEH takes seriously. The Humanities Endowment 
peer review system has been heralded as a model for adoption at other 
agencies. The forced cancellation of peer panels as a result of 
government shutdown has weakened that system and prevented the agency 
from meeting its high standards of rigorous review.
  Should funding run out on March 15, NEH will have to cancel its March 
25 round of grant awards. Applicants who have put thousands of hours 
and effort into their grant applications will be denied the opportunity 
for funding for an entire year.
  Changing the Humanities Endowment appropriations means that: Work on 
the George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Dwight 
Eisenhower, and First Federal Congress Papers will be terminated before 
completion. Summer seminar programs for teachers will be canceled 
entirely. One hundred fellowships will be eliminated. The widely-read 
Humanities Magazine, already forced to cancel its January issue, will 
have to cancel more. In July, all grants to film, libraries, and 
museums will have to be canceled. This includes a Utah Humanities 
Council exhibit scheduled to travel to 32 small, rural museums from 
West Virginia to Oregon, and a Buffalo Bill Historical Center exhibit 
slated for 10 Western sites. State Humanities Councils, in 

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addition to losing anticipated funding for this year, are facing 
enormous difficulties in planning for the next. Technical assistance 
and consultation to hundreds of small- and medium-sized cultural 
institutions will be suspended.
  The drastic effects of government shutdown and budget impasse on 
American scholarship and the entire humanities field is not necessarily 
as obvious as it is in other areas of concentration. This is because 
NEH grants, with their heavy emphasis on research, rarely see results 
for several years. But continuity in support for research projects is 
critical, and NEH represents the single largest source of financial 
support for the humanities nationwide. The next largest, the Andrew 
Mellon Foundation, provides one-third of the amounts granted by NEH.
  When we eliminate the staff and resources funded by NEH and needed to 
preserve brittle books, the destruction does not stop. We have lost 
volumes of important manuscripts forever. The same is true for NEH's 
important United States Newspaper Preservation project to preserve city 
and small town newspapers on communities in all 50 States.
  Mr. President, I cannot underestimate the gravity of this situation. 
If allowed to continue, it will mean that future generations of 
Americans will be deprived of the knowledge of our Nation's rich 
history. We owe it to our people to maintain this legacy, and not to 
let it slip away. We simply cannot afford to lose artifacts, texts, 
wisdom, and insights that tell where we came from, who we are, and how 
we might make wise decisions for the generations ahead. I urge my 
colleagues to consider how very serious this situation is, to 
understand the long-term ramifications of cuts in the NEH budget, and 
to join in a bipartisan effort to enable this agency to continue its 
good, worthwhile, and extremely important endeavors.

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