Bill heading to Obama would boost federal arts, cultural funding to highest level in 16 years

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Arts agencies to get highest funding in 16 years

WASHINGTON — The National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities are expected to receive their highest levels of funding in 16 years from a bill President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law by this weekend.

Under the Interior Appropriations Bill passed Thursday by the House and Senate, both cultural agencies were slated to receive $167.5 million for the 2010 fiscal year. Last year’s budget allocated $155 million.

The increase — amid a record federal budget deficit — comes after an aggressive push by lobbyists to show that arts organizations provide thousands of jobs across the country. Many arts groups, including the Baltimore Opera, have closed their doors or cut jobs because of the tough recession.

In a statement, the advocacy group Americans for the Arts credited Obama and key congressional leaders with edging federal arts funding closer to its high of $176 million for the NEA in the 1990s.

“This important budget increase recognizes the essential role the arts play in our lives, schools and communities,” said Robert Lynch, president and CEO of the lobbying group.

On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, a Washington state Democrat and chief author of the House bill, said interior accounts had been “chronically underfunded” for the past eight years under Republican President George W. Bush. The bill also includes an increase for environmental programs.

Republicans slashed funding for the arts endowment to less than $100 million in 1996, and the annual allocation has yet to fully rebound to its high from 1992. The arts endowment did, however, receive an extra $50 million this year as part of the federal stimulus package to help struggling nonprofit groups sustain arts jobs.

The bill also includes increases for the national museums in Washington and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

The Smithsonian Institution, the largest federal arts allocation, is slated to receive a $30 million increase — from $731.4 million to $761.4 million. It covers increasing costs, funds to digitize museum collections for the Internet and $12.6 million to help renovate the shuttered Arts and Industries Building on the National Mall.

The separate National Gallery of Art is slated to receive $167 million, up from about $123 million in 2009.

National Endowment for the Arts: www.nea.gov/

National Endowment for the Humanities: www.neh.gov/

Smithsonian Institution: www.si.edu/

National Gallery of Art: www.nga.gov/