For FY2009 , the Bush Administration has proposed a continued reduction in the NTIA budget, primarily reflected in eliminating NTIA's program to construct and maintain public telecommunications facilities. In both FY2006 and FY2007, the Bush Administration requested ending funding for the public telecommunications facilities, planning and construction program. Salaries and Expenses

This portion of the NTIA budget includes funding to maintain ongoing programs for domestic and international policy development, federal spectrum and related research. For FY2009, the Bush Administration has requested $19.2 million. The third NTIA program that the Bush Administration has requested funding for comes out of the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act. That lawâand new NTIA programâcalled for the creation of a Digital Transition and Safety Public Fund, which offset receipts from the auction of licenses to use electromagnetic spectrum recovered from discontinued analog television signals. The receipts would fund the following programmatic functions at NTIA: a digital-analog converter box program to assist consumers in meeting the 2009 deadline for receiving television broadcasts in digital format; public safety interoperable communications grants, which will be made to ensure that public safety agencies have a standardized format for sharing voice and data signals on the radio spectrum; New York City 9/11 digital transition funding, until the planned Freedom Tower is built; assistance to low-power television stations, for conversion from analog to digital transition; a national alert and tsunami warning program; and funding to enhance a national alert system as stated in the ENHANCE 911 Act of 2004. Congress agreed with this request and eliminated funding for this program. Two important issues facing NTIA's administration of public telecommunications policy are domain name registration and use of spectrum. A second important issue is the role of NTIA in the auction and management of spectrum. That law ( P.L.
For FY2009, the Bush Administration has proposed a budget of $19.2 million for NTIA, with this money going towards administrative functions. There would be no funding under another NTIA program, which supports public telecommunications facilities planning and construction. Under the FY2008 enacted appropriation ( P.L. 110-161 ) NTIA is funded at $36.3 million, which was $3.3 million below the FY2007 enacted and $17.7 million above the President's request. There are two major components to the NTIA appropriated budget (a third program, which is a revolving fund based on spectrum auctions, is discussed below). The first is Salaries and Expenses. For FY2008, the Bush Administration recommended $18.6 million; Congress approved $17.5 million for FY2008. In the past, a large part of this program has been for the management of various information and telecommunications policies both domestically and internationally. For the second NTIA component, the Public Telecommunications and Facilities Program (PTFPC), the Bush Administration has requested that this program's funding be eliminated, arguing that most of the construction and refurbishing of public telecommunications facilities has already been done, and that any remaining support that is needed should come from local public broadcasting entities. However, for FY2008, Congress disagreed, citing the ongoing need for upgrading of public broadcasting facilities, particularly as the deadline of converting all analog broadcasts to digital in 2009 approaches. For FY2008, Congress funded this program at $18.8 million. Under at third program, NTIA operates a revolving fund which uses offset receipts from the auction of licenses recovered from discontinued analog signals. An important part of this program is to fund a digital-analog converter box program to assist consumers in meeting the February 2009 deadline for receiving television broadcasts in digital format.