NVCA Today

Congress passed legislation to extend (once again) the deadline to reauthorize the SBIR program for another 3 months — through July 31, 2010. The program was set to expire on April 30th, but House and Senate conferees are not currently scheduled to meet and work towards a compromise between the two bills. Last fall, there seemed to be some promise of a workable compromise, but unfortunately it now appears that the House conferees have backed away from further negotiations with the Senate. NVCA and BIO have continued to encourage the House and Senate to reach an acceptable compromise and reauthorize the program for an extended number of years. If they don’t succeed in working out their differences by the end of this year, both bills will die and the process of passing legislation will have to start again.