Monday afternoon, July 13, 2009 the Senate put the finishing touches on their SBIR reauthorization bill, S.1233 and passed it via unanimous consent.The Senate bill, which differs from the House version, provides for an increase to the SBIR program allocation, raising it to 3.5 percent, spread out over 11 years. The SBIR allocation increase includes all agencies, including the National Institutes of Health. The bill also increases the STTR program allocation from 0.3 percent to 0.6 percent over six years. Additionally, the Senate bill would amend eligibility requirements to allow businesses owned and controlled by multiple venture capital firms to compete for a percentage of SBIR projects. To improve the diversity of the programs, the measure also reauthorizes the Federal and State Technology program and Rural Outreach Program.
The next step will be a conference of House and Senate "conferees" that will attempt to hammer the two bills into one cohesive bill (lots of work and compromising to be done). Then, if they come to agreement, the final bill gets sent to the President for his signature. If the two bodies cannot agree, we could be looking at another continuing resolution.
Learn more here.
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