In his early days as a strong supporter of the National Information Infrastructure, Gore was happily situated in a democratic party that was willing to fund the construction of such a system. It is estimated that connecting every classroom to the NII will cost approximately $15 billion dollars in start-up funding and an additional $3 billion dollars annually. [source] The changing political climate has brought a tightening of Washington's purse strings in which such a governmental investment would never be approved. In keeping with this new climate, Gore has changed his tune somewhat regarding where moneys to construct and maintain the infrastructure will come from. Though he is still very much in favor of universal access to the NII, he has conceded that much of the funding will have be provided by private industry.
As recently as February, 1995 Gore was still advocating, much to the dismay of Senator Pressler, author of the Telecommunications Bill that seeks total deregulation of the industry, that funds from the auctions of wireless spectrum licenses ought to be utilized to help plug the nation's schools into telecommunications networks. Throughout the 104th session of Congress there has been no mention of the use of this funding mechanism. Given a climate so unresponsive to the needs of the schools, Gore must be pleased with the recent Congressional action in which lawmakers voted to "allow essential telecommunications carriers to receive subsidies for serving schools, libraries, and rural health-care providers and to require telephone companies to offer public, educational and governmental entities access to video dial tone systems at preferential rates." [Benton April Summary].
In spite of his concessions to Republican pressure that the federal government not assume responsibility for building the NII, Gore has not abandoned the concept of seed money for model NII projects. The High Performance Computing and Communications division of ARPA is still involved in funding testbed research and fostering the rapid development and use of high performance computers and networks throughout the Nation. HPCC's mission is to "extend U.S. technology leadership in computer communications by a program of research and development that advances the leading edge of networking technology and services. NREN (National Research and Education Network) will widen the research and education community's access to high performance computing and research centers and to electronic information resources and libraries." [source]
With support from the White House, $64 million dollars were appropriated for the Commerce Department's Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program (TIAAP). Through the U.S. Department of Education the federal government also provides funding for the StarSchools Program and this year has appropriated $27 million dollars for Challenge Grants to promote the integration of technologies into curriculum. But, in a constant battle for funding, all of these appropriations are at risk and may be dramatically reduced this year, even with the ardent support of the Administration.
