Directs the Secretary of Commerce to provide financial assistance, through grants, for the establishment and support of entities that provide business incubator services (necessary for the initiation and initial sustainment of operations of a newly established business, including legal, intellectual property, and technology services and planning) for small- and medium-sized businesses.
Directs the Comptroller General to study how rural infrastructure, venture capital, and Federal programs can enhance rural areas.
Amends the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act to require employer notification of Federal and State elected officials (as well as local ones) prior to dislocation of workers.
Amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to require submission of H-1B labor condition applications at same time as H-1B nonimmigrant classification petitions.
Amends the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act to establish a National Rural Development Partnership, to be composed of a National Rural Development Council and State rural development councils.
Amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) exclude certain amounts of severance payments from gross income; and (2) expand the work opportunity tax credit to include qualified small business employees.
Directs the Secretary of Agriculture to make a grant to the William C. Merwin Rural Services Institute of the State University of New York at Potsdam, New York, to establish and operate a Northern New York Travel and Tourism Research Center.