Commerce to close National Technical Information Service

Commerce Secretary William Daley last week announced a plan to close the 270-person National Technical Information Service.

The Commerce Department agency, created in 1950, sells technical government documents to the public and provides technical services to other federal agencies. NTIS generates all of its operating funds from fees it charges customers. The agency has seen declining sales for the last six years, as many of the documents it sells have become available for free on the Internet, the Commerce Department said.

"Sound management dictates that we cut our losses and recognize the technologically advanced environment we live in," Daley said on Thursday. "This is the right thing to do and the best thing for the American taxpayer."

Daley pointed to a report released by the Commerce Department recently called "The Emerging Digital Economy II." NTIS charges $27 for the report, even though it is available for free on the Commerce Department Web site (http://www.doc.gov).

Congress must approve the plan to close NTIS. Daley said Commerce will send its plan to Capitol Hill next month. Under the plan, the service's document archives would be shifted to the Library of Congress, and the department would ensure that government technical information is available to the public for "long periods of time," Daley said.

Commerce's inspector general has criticized NTIS' financial situation since 1990. As far back as 1990, the IG office had "expressed serious concerns about the agency's financial stability and the viability of its current and future mission," IG Johnnie Frazier said in congressional testimony earlier this year.

NTIS's financial troubles continued throughout the 1990s, with losses of $1.1 million in 1995, $3.8 million in 1997, $1.3 million in 1998, and a $622,000 loss through the first three months of fiscal 1999, according to Frazier. Though the service is supposed to be self-supporting, it received appropriations of $7.8 million in 1993 and $7 million in 1995 to address operating needs. The Clinton administration requested another $2 million for fiscal 2000 to shore up NTIS operations, but Congress has so far not appropriated that money.

NTIS also ran into criticism over the Internal Revenue Service's failed Cyberfile initiative, in which the IRS paid NTIS millions of dollars to develop an Internet tax filing system that never materialized. More recently, NTIS was criticized in the press for developing a fee-based search engine for online government information. Critics argued the service should be free. NTIS ended up pulling out of its joint venture with Northern Light, a Cambridge, Mass.-based firm, to develop the search engine.

Faced with the financial difficulties, NTIS has downsized since 1997 from 390 employees to about 270 now, mostly through transfers to other Commerce agencies. Commerce plans to find jobs elsewhere in the department and in other agencies for remaining NTIS employees. NTIS is located in Springfield, Va.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., whose district includes NTIS headquarters, wrote a letter to Daley on Friday expressing disappointment that members of Congress and NTIS employees were not involved in the decision to close the service.

"We are particularly concerned that the employees at the NTIS facility were notified in a haphazard manner that the department would now seek to close NTIS in the next year," the congressmen wrote. "We would like to respectfully request your commitment to work together and to consider other restructuring proposals and find the best solutions for the future of NTIS, its employees and their families."

The National Federation of Federal Employees represents NTIS employees. The union had no comment on the proposed closure Friday.