(Flickr Photo by 401(K) 2013)
The Kansas Senate has given first-round approval to a bill that would issue more than $200 million in additional state bonds to help pay for a federal research lab to be built in Manhattan. The National Bio and Agro- Defense Facility, known as NBAF, will study diseases that could affect the US agriculture industry. The bill passed with bipartisan support. Anthony Hensley, from Topeka, is the top Democrat in the Senate.
A Senate committee added a provision saying the state would only issue the bonds if the federal government pays its share of the more than $1 billion in construction costs. President Obama put more than $700 million in his budget proposal to build the lab.