The House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior has approved a bill that sets the annual budgets for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities at $170 million each for the 2010 fiscal year. The current appropriation for these agencies is $155 million each and President Obama had requested an increase to $161 million. The new figure is still short of the National Endowment for the Arts’ high of $176 million in 1992. "I’ve been trying to take this back up, but to do it in increments that were sustainable with our Republican friends,” said Representative Norm Dicks, a Washington State Democrat who is chairman of the House subcommittee. "Especially now, when so many of our arts institutions around the country are struggling for survival, we need to have more money to get out there to help them.” The bill now goes to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior