By Tom McClimon

The U.S. House of Representatives on July 14 passed an Interior Appropriations bill which contained $98 million for the National Endowment for the Arts and $110 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Earlier in the debate, the House defeated by a vote of 217-207 an amendment offered by Representative Louise Slaughter (NY) to increase both the arts and humanities endowments by $10 million each. While the amendment to increasing for the NEA’s budget was defeated, the vote did represent a significant change in the tone of the debate in that vote was on increasing the funding for the arts endowment, rather than preserving the NEA. The House later defeated on a 296-124 vote an amendment offered by Representative Cliff Stearns (FL) to cut the NEA’s budget by $2.1 million. The House did pass an amendment offered by Representative Don Young (AK) to cut the Interior Appropriations budget by .48 percent resulting in a slight decrease in funding for the cultural agencies.

The Senate will now take up its Interior Appropriations bill which contains $99 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, and $111 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities.