915 CONFERENCE TOTAL—WITH COMPARISONS The total new budget (obligational) authority for the fiscal year 2004 recommended by the Committee of Conference, with compari- sons to the fiscal year 2003 amount, the 2004 budget estimates, and the House and Senate bills for 2004 follow: [In thousands of dollars] New budget (obligational) authority, fiscal year 2003 ........................ $430,990,470 Budget estimates of new (obligational) authority, fiscal year 2004 469,697,348 House bill, fiscal year 2004 ................................................................... 478,406,936 Senate bill, fiscal year 2004 .................................................................. 473,552,979 Conference agreement, fiscal year 2004 .............................................. 480,345,954 Conference agreement compared with: New budget (obligational) authority, fiscal year 2003 ................ +49,355,484 Budget estimates of new (obligational) authority, fiscal year 2004 .............................................................................................. +10,648,606 House bill, fiscal year 2004 ............................................................ +1,939,018 Senate bill, fiscal year 2004 ........................................................... +6,792,975 DIVISION F—DEPARTMENTS OF TRANSPORTATION AND TREASURY, AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIA- TIONS ACT, 2004 CONGRESSIONAL DIRECTIVES The conferees agree that Executive Branch propensities cannot substitute for Congress’s own statements concerning the best evi- dence of Congressional intentions; that is, the official reports of the Congress. The committee of conference approves report language included by the House (House Report 108–243) or the Senate (Sen- ate Report 108–146) that is not changed by the conference. The statement of the managers, while repeating some report language for emphasis, is not intended to negate the language referred to above unless expressly provided herein. TITLE I—DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY SALARIES AND EXPENSES The conference agreement provides $80,903,000 for the salaries and expenses of the office of the secretary instead of $94,077,000 as proposed by the House and $91,276,000 as proposed by the Sen- ate. Bill language is included that specifies amounts by office, con- sistent with actions in prior years, and limits transfers among each office to no more than 5 percent. The bill language specifies that any transfer greater than 5 percent shall be submitted for approval to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations. Bill lan- guage, as proposed by both the House and the Senate, allows the Department to spend up to $60,000 for official reception and rep- resentation activities, and credits to the appropriation up to $2,500,000 in user fee receipts. The following table summarizes the appropriation for each of- fice: Immediate office of the Secretary ......................................................... $2,210,000 Immediate office of the Deputy Secretary ........................................... 700,000 Office of the General Counsel ............................................................... 15,403,000 VerDate jul 14 2003 07:32 Dec 02, 2003 Jkt 090637 PO 00000 Frm 00919 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6611 E:\HR\OC\HR401.XXX HR401 916 Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy ..................................... 12,312,000 Office of the Assistant Secretary for Budget and Programs .............. 8,536,000 Office of the Assistant Secretary for Governmental Affairs ............... 2,300,000 Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration ......................... 24,612,000 Office of Public Affairs .......................................................................... 1,915,000 Executive Secretariat ............................................................................ 1,447,000 Board of Contract Appeals .................................................................... 700,000 Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization ................... 1,268,000 Office of the Chief Information Officer ................................................ 7,500,000 Office of Intelligence and Security ....................................................... 2,000,000 Implementation of Air Transportation Safety and System Sta- bilization Act for cargo carriers.—The conferees expect that the De- partment would administer funds made available under title I of the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act with- out discrimination among directly competitive air carriers and note that comparable percentages of the notional maximum amount of compensation payable under section 103(b)(2) of that Act provides a credible check on the Department’s allocation decisions. Further, the conferees expect that the Secretary will defer any final deter- mination on disputed claims until the Comptroller General’s review is completed, and would refer any remaining disputed claims to an administrative law judge upon an affected claimant’s request. In addition, the Department is directed to provide the report re- quested by the Senate. Congressional justification materials.—The conferees direct the office of the secretary to submit its congressional justification mate- rials in support of the individual offices of the offices of the sec- retary at the same level of detail provided in the congressional jus- tifications presented in fiscal year 2003, and to submit annual Con- gressional budget justifications for each modal administration to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations on the date on which the President’s budget is delivered officially to Congress. Office of Intelligence and Security.—The conferees acknowledge the mission of this office has changed significantly since enactment of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. Consequently, the conferees direct the Secretary to submit, not later than March 1, 2004, a report to the House and Senate Committees on Appropria- tions describing in detail the organization, mission, and respon- sibilities of this office, as well as a five year projection of staffing and budget resources. Outstanding reports.—The conference agreement continues the longstanding policy expressed in the Senate report directing the Of- fice of the Assistant Secretary for Budget and Programs to report quarterly on the status of all outstanding Congressional reports and reporting requirements, including the degree of delinquency of Congressionally requested reports and an estimated date for deliv- ery. The conferees note that not only are many reports themselves late, but in fiscal year 2003, the quarterly compilation described herein was itself only submitted in one of four quarters required. The conferees will work with the office of the secretary to ensure that this situation improves in the coming year. Cyber threat intelligence.—The conferees recognize the impor- tance of utilizing proactive cyber threat intelligence to protect the critical infrastructure assets of the department. The conferees en- courage the department to deploy a performance-based cyber threat intelligence service that contains the aggregation of known tech- VerDate jul 14 2003 07:32 Dec 02, 2003 Jkt 090637 PO 00000 Frm 00920 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 E:\HR\OC\HR401.XXX HR401 917 nical vulnerabilities, original technical vulnerability research, geo- political cyber threat analysis, malicious code research and pre- dictive cyber threat analysis. The conferees also recognize that many serious cyber attacks originate from non-English-speaking re- gions of the world. As such, the cyber threat intelligence services described above must include a demonstrated ability to collect cyber threat intelligence in multiple languages, including Arabic. Grant notifications to Congress.—The conferees agree that the report, directed by the Senate, submitting options for providing grant notifications in electronic format should be submitted to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations not later than December 31, 2003. OFFICE OF CIVIL RIGHTS The conference agreement provides $8,569,000 for the office of civil rights as proposed by the House and the Senate. TRANSPORTATION PLANNING, RESEARCH, AND DEVELOPMENT The conference agreement provides $20,864,000 for transpor- tation planning, research, and development instead of $8,336,000 as proposed by the House and $15,836,000 as proposed by the Sen- ate. Adjustments to the budget request are as follows: Conference agreement Aviation and international policy studies ............................................ ¥$2,472,000 Circumpolar infrastructure task force, Artic Council and Northern Forum, AK .......................................................................................... 1,000,000 Center for Integrated Transportation & Traffic Systems, AZ ............ 600,000 Center for Spatial Technologies, MS .................................................... 700,000 Integrated data query sharing system for maritime domain aware- ness, WA ............................................................................................. 1,100,000 Regional Interstate Commerce and Transportation Policy Harmoni- zation Project, SD ............................................................................... 250,000 UA Transportation Hybrid Electric Vehicle & Fuel Cell Research Program, AL ....................................................................................... 1,250,000 WestStart Vehicular Flywheel Project, WA ........................................ 1,000,000 Worcester