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FEDERALLY FUNDED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTERS

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I would like to engage my colleague and chairman on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee about the conference report's treatment of Defense 's federally funded research and development centers, or FFRDC's.

These institutions are unique in their capabilities to provide the Defense Department (DOD) with specialized scientific, engineering, and analytical knowledge important to national security.

I am very proud that New England is the home of two of the premiere defense FFRDC's: the Lincoln Laboratory operated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Mitre Corporation. Lincoln Lab is sponsored by the Air Force, and Mitre is sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense .

I want to discuss an issue affecting the Lincoln Laboratory. Lincoln Laboratory has been a leader in the fields of ballistic missile defense , communications, space and surface surveillance, and advanced electronics.

For the benefit of our colleagues, and as guidance to the Defense Department, would the chairman be willing to elaborate on the conferees, action regarding defense FFRDC's?

Mr. STEVENS. I would be happy to highlight our action. In past years, the annual Defense Department appropriations acts have included a statutory ceiling on the total amount of funds which might be allocated by the Department for its 10 FFRDC's.

In response to DOD's request that it be allowed to manage overall FFRDC resources through staff years of technical effort instead of dollars, the conference agreement for fiscal year 1997 includes such a statutory limit.

The Department is required to control its staff years to maintain total FFRDC spending at the fiscal year 1996 level, but the conferees did agree that limits on staff years were a more appropriate management mechanism for fiscal year 1997. This was a reasonable compromise which tries to address DOD's concerns while at the same time not obscuring the budgetary impacts of funding FFRDC's, which has been a concern to the Defense Subcommittee.

Mr. GREGG. As the chairman knows, the use of a statutory dollar limitation during fiscal year 1996 inadvertently perturbed the funds made available to Lincoln Laboratory to acquire industry support for major development or demonstration activities. Would the chairman comment on this situation?

Mr. STEVENS. The problem faced by Lincoln Laboratory for fiscal year 1996 was caused not by the statutory dollar ceiling but by the Defense Department. DOD chose--unwisely in my view--to assign a lower priority to the lab's allocation and a higher priority to funding the studies and analyses FFRDC's. I disagreed with that decision. I wrote to the Department and urged it to assign a much higher priority to the Lincoln Laboratory programs. The Department chose to do otherwise, and I regret its choice.

Mr. GREGG. Does the distinguished chairman believe that the conference agreement now before us eliminates this dilemma for Lincoln Laboratory for fiscal year 1997?

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Mr. STEVENS. I certainly do. The limitation on staff years specifically does not apply to the funds needed by Lincoln Lab to acquire industry support for major system development or demonstrations. It is the conferees, understanding that these funds are used to contract with industry and are not used to expand staff years of technical effort at the laboratory.