Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 108 Part 1.djvu/276

 108 STAT. 250 PUBLIC LAW 103-227—MAR. 31, 1994 Contracts. Nonprofit organizations. Federal Register, publication. ing access to the Internet and the National Research and Education Network, (h) REGIONAL EDUCATIONAL LABORATORIES FOR RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, DISSEMINATION, AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE.— (1) REGIONAL EDUCATIONAL LABORATORIES.— The Assistant Secretary shall enter into contracts with public or private nonprofit entities to establish a networked system of not less than 10 and not more than 12 regional educational laboratories which serve the needs of each region of the United States in accordance with the provisions of this subsection. The amount of assistance allocated to each laboratory by the Assistant Secretary shall reflect the number of local educational agencies and the number of school-age children within the region served by such laboratory, as well as the cost of providing services within the geographic area encompassed by the region. (2) REGIONS.— The regions served by the regional educational laboratories shall be the 10 geographic regions in existence on the day preceding the date of the enactment of this title, except that in fiscal year 1996, the Assistant Secretary may support not more than 2 additional regional educational laboratories serving regions not in existence on the day preceding the date of enactment of this Act, provided that— (A) the amount appropriated for the regional educational laboratories in fiscal year 1996 exceeds the amount appropriated for the regional educational laboratories in fiscal year 1995 by not less than $2,000,000; (B) each such additional regional laboratory shall be supported by not less than $2,000,000 annually; (C) the creation of any such additional laboratory region is announced at the time of the announcement of the competition for contracts for all regional educational laboratories; (D) the creation of a regional educational laboratory that involves the combination or subdivision of a region or regions in existence on the day preceding the date of enactment of this Act in which States in 1 such region are combined with States in another such region does not result in any region in existence on such date permanently becoming part of a larger region, nor result in any such region permanently subsuming another region, nor creates within the continental United States a region that is smaller than 4 contiguous States, nor partitions a region in existence on the day preceding the date of the enactment of this Act to include less than 4 contiguous States included in the region on the day preceding the date of enactment of this Act; (E) the Assistant Secretary has published a notice in the Federal Register inviting the public, for a period of not less than 60 days, to make recommendations with respect to the creation of 1 or 2 additional regional educational laboratories; (F) the Assistant Secretary has solicited and received letters of support for the creation of any new region from the Chief State School Officers and State boards of education in each of the contiguous States that would be included in such new region.

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