Aaron Trippler, government affairs director for the American Industrial Hygiene Association, dissects NIOSH’s proposed budget for fiscal 2011, in his latest dispatch, “Happenings from the Hill.”

NIOSH is to be given an additional $7 million specifically earmarked for nanotechnology research, according to Trippler. This should give NIOSH a total of around $16 million for nano research.

He continues: “And while there is no mention of specific dollars – the House Committee on Education and Labor submitted its review of the budget to the House Budget Committee and included language that bears reporting. The Committee stated that ‘NIOSH will need additional resources to conduct research and risk assessments on exposure levels that would form the basis for updating OSHA Permissible Exposure Limits’. This is one of the most positive signs that our efforts to convince Congress of the need to update the PELs are working.”