Congress Slashes Manufacturing Assistance

The Modernization Forum reported on Thursday that Congressional appropriators have agreed to gut the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), the main federal program serving America’s small manufacturers. The move came Wednesday night, despite the pleas of more than 300 members of Congress who supported $110 million in letters to the CJS Subcommittee. The U.S. has lost 2.5 million manufacturing jobs since the beginning of 2001.

Congress will provide only $39.6 million for MEP this year, a 63 percent cut from the current funding level. Last year, Congress provided MEP with $106.6 million. The cut to MEP came during last-minute wrangling over a final Omnibus Appropriations bill that would provide about $700 billion for up to 12 federal departments. As of press time, the Omnibus bill had not been approved by Congress. Funding levels were unknown for the Advanced Technology Program, Economic Development Administration, and other programs of interest to the tech-based economic development community.

MEP assists small manufacturers and helps boost their productivity, sales, employment and investment in modernization. As a federal-state-private partnership, MEP supports a national network of more than 60 centers with 400 locations across the country and Puerto Rico. These nonprofit centers employ more than 1,800 professionals who work with manufacturers to help them adopt and use the latest and most efficient technologies, processes and business practices.

In a September 2003 review, the National Academy of Public Administration said MEP is "the only federal program designed specifically to help small manufacturers, and positioned to help create an infrastructure for providing support to these firms as the U.S. economy moves through enormous economic transition.”

More information on MEP is available at: http://www.mep.nist.gov/