After a stop-and-go attempt to fund a $3.2 million study of cancer rates among IBM Endicott employees, a federal agency has committed to move ahead with the project in 2008, U.S. Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey said.

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) will do the work, even though a mandate making it a priority was not included in an appropriations bill signed by President Bush last Wednesday, said Hinchey, D-Hurley.

In November, Bush vetoed the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill, which included language, authored by Hinchey, making the study a NIOSH priority. The House passed a subsequent spending bill that included the same clause, but the Senate did not, Hinchey said.

"We've been assured by them (NIOSH) they will be able to proceed," said Hinchey, a member of the House Appropriations Committee. "I'm very confident, despite the fact that it's been a very rugged road with this bill."

Christina Bowles, a spokeswoman for NIOSH, said people in the agency informed about the status of the study were out for the holidays and could not be reached last week.

NIOSH, part of the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, works on a budget of approximately $250 million to conduct studies that help researchers learn more about occupational hazards in the interest of preventing them.

Lynne Pinkerton, a NIOSH official, proposed the study in March to a community group called the Western Broome Environmental Stakeholders Coalition. At that time, she said funding was a potential barrier to the project, but not insurmountable if community interest was high.

The IBM-Endicott study would determine whether employees suffer disproportionately from cancer, a question asked by residents, workers and activists concerned about exposure to TCE and other hazardous solvents once widely used in the microelectronics industry.

To answer the question, NIOSH would draw on 28,000 personnel files dating to the early 1960s that document the IBM work force at the sprawling Endicott facility, now owned by Huron Real Estate Associates. Researchers would cross-reference them with cancer and death records kept by state and federal government agencies to see if people who worked for the company developed cancer during their employment or any time after.

The study also would tap IBM's industrial hygiene records to track likely exposure scenarios for workers in various departments.

Proponents have said the study would be a significant contribution to worldwide occupational safety, including in countries that use chemicals and processes being phased out in this country.

The interest in chemical exposure became more intense in the Southern Tier after the 2003 discovery that a subterranean plume of trichloroethylene and similar chemicals was flowing from the microelectronics plant on North Street and forming gases that pushed into hundreds of basements through a process called vapor intrusion.