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Digital Opportunity Investment Trust

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Digital Opportunity Investment Trust (DOIT) is a proposal to create a United States federal trust to distribute, for educational purposes, funds to be raised by public auctions of licenses to use radio frequency bands.

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Concepts

According to advocates at the National Humanities Alliance, DOIT would receive funds from U.S. government lease revenues and distribute them through competitive grants for projects to (1) apply information technologies in education and skills training; (2) digitize collections of libraries, museums, universities and public television stations; and (3) develop tools for education and digital technology.[1]

Background and supporters

As described by Anne G. Murphy of the Federation of American Scientists, DOIT was initially proposed in 2001 by the Digital Promise Project, a nonprofit group funded by the Century Fund and the Carnegie Endowment.[2] Auctions of licenses to use radio frequency bands were estimated to raise around 20,000,000,000 U.S. dollars as endowment for the proposed trust, generating about 1,000,000,000 U.S. dollars per year as income. An organization called Digital Promise Coalition was formed to promote the concept, headed by Newton Minow, a former U.S. Federal Communications Commissioner and former chairman of the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service, and Larry Grossman, a former president of NBC News and former president of the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service. The concept attracted interest from the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities and several nonprofit organizations outside government. It has been proposed to the 109th U.S. Congress in bills introduced by Rep. Ralph Regula (R-OH) and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) (see Legislation).

Cited by the Digital Promise Project as precedents for its proposed approach to education funding have been the U.S. Morrill Act of 1862 and the G.I. Bill implemented after World War II. However, those U.S. federal programs were not financed through earmarks on revenues or permanent endowments. Other precedents are available, although they are not exact. For example, the U.S. Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1965[3] (P.L. 88-578) earmarked revenue for conservation from oil and mineral leases on public land, but it nevertheless requires appropriation of the revenue by the U.S. Congress. This fund has a 50-year life that expires in 2015. The Act to Establish the "Smithsonian Institution"[4] (P.L. 29-178 of 1846), created a permanent endowment fund, but revenues for the fund came from a private source, the estate of British scientist James Smithson.

Unites States government funding for humanities and arts

The National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, created by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965[5] (P.L. 89-209), currently have the largest shares of United States government funding for programs in humanities and arts. The FY 2006 appropriations for these two agencies are US$140.9 million and US$124.4 million. Appropriations in recent years (in US$ millions) are shown in the following table:[6] [7] 

 Fiscal Year     1992  1993  1994  1995  1996  1997  1998  1999  2000  2001  2002  2003  2004  2005  2006
 Humanities     174.0 177.4 177.5 172.0 110.0 110.0 110.7 110.7 115.3 120.0 124.5 124.9 135.3 138.1 140.9
 Arts           176.0 174.5 170.2 162.3  99.5  99.5  98.0  98.0  97.6 104.8 115.2 115.7 121.0 121.3 124.4

Potential funding for DOIT as described above, although relatively small as compared to United States government support for education (US$71,545 million in FY 2006[8]), would represent a major increase above the funding levels historically provided for humanities and arts.

Federal legislation

The Digital Promise Project has sought federal legislation for the proposed Digital Opportunity Investment Trust in the 108th and 109th U.S. Congresses. H.R. 1396 "Spectrum Commons and Digital Dividends Act of 2003"[9] was sponsored in March, 2003, by Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA) with cosponsors John B. Larson (D-CT) and Karen McCarthy (D-MO). S. 1854 "Digital Opportunity Investment Trust Act"[10] was sponsored in November, 2003, by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT) with cosponsors Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Olympia J. Snowe (R-ME). Although they helped introduce the concepts, these bills made little progress and expired with the 108th Congress.

S. 1023 "Digital Opportunity Investment Trust Act"[11] was sponsored in May, 2005, by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT) with cosponsors Conrad R. Burns (R-MT), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Olympia J. Snowe (R-ME) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA). As of spring, 2006, it is pending hearings in the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

H.R. 2512 "Digital Opportunity Investment Trust Act"[12] was sponsored in May, 2005, by Rep. Ralph Regula (R-OH) with cosponsors Paul E. Gillmor (R-OH), Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Rush D. Holt, Jr. (D-NJ), Major R. Owens (D-NY), Richard H. Baker (R-LA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Nita M. Lowey (D-NY), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D-PA), F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI), Frank R. Wolf (R-VA) and Rick Boucher (D-VA). As of spring, 2006, it is pending hearings in the Subcommittee on Select Education.

Although they carry the same title, S. 1023 and H.R. 2512 differ in some details. Both require 30 percent of the proceeds of each auction of radio frequency spectrum to be deposited in a United States federal trust fund, and both allocate 21 percent of the interest from the fund to educational television stations supported by the U.S. Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Both specify that the trust fund is otherwise to be used for the following purposes:

"to help underwrite the digitization of the collections in the Nation's universities, museums, libraries, public broadcasting stations, and cultural institutions"

"to support basic and applied research, development, and demonstrations of innovative learning and assessment systems as well as the components and tools needed to create them"

"to use the research results developed...to create prototype applications designed to meet learning objectives in a variety of subject areas and designed for learners with many different educational backgrounds"

S. 1023 authorizes the trust fund management to cooperate with business and nonprofit organizations by "seeking new ways to put telecommunications and information technologies to work in their areas of interest." H.R. 2512 makes use of the fund subject to Congressional appropriation, but S. 1023 does not. In that respect, the House bill follows the model of the Land and Water Conservation Fund,[13] while the Senate bill follows a model similar to the Smithsonian Institution.

References

  1. ^ Digital Promise Project (2006). "The Digital Opportunity Investment Trust" (PDF). National Humanities Alliance.
  2. ^ DigiNews Editors (Oct 15 2003). "The Digital Opportunity Investment Trust". RLG DigiNews 7(5). {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help); Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  3. ^ National Park Service (2000). "Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, 1965". U.S. Department of the Interior.
  4. ^ Smithsonian Institution Libraries (1998). "An Act to Establish the Smithsonian Institution, 1846". Smithsonian Institution.
  5. ^ NEH Public Affairs Office (2006). "National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act". National Endowment for the Humanities.
  6. ^ Sourcebook (2006). "National Endowment for the Humanities" (PDF). National Humanities Alliance. See "Funding History."
  7. ^ National Endowment for the Arts (2006). "Appropriations History". U.S. Department of the Interior.
  8. ^ Education Overview (2006). "Budget News" (PDF). U.S. Department of Education.
  9. ^ U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey; et al. (2003). "H.R. 1396, Spectrum Commons and Digital Dividends Act of 2003". U.S. Library of Congress. {{cite web}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
  10. ^ U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd; et al. (2003). "S. 1854, Digital Opportunity Investment Trust Act". U.S. Library of Congress. {{cite web}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
  11. ^ U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd; et al. (2005). "S. 1023, Digital Opportunity Investment Trust Act". U.S. Library of Congress. {{cite web}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
  12. ^ U.S. Rep. Ralph Regula; et al. (2005). "H.R. 2512, Digital Opportunity Investment Trust Act". U.S. Library of Congress. {{cite web}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
  13. ^ See reference [3].
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