STATUS OF 110TH CONGRESS

With only four weeks until Members leave for the Memorial Day recess, Congress has its work cut out for it as it strives to finalize (prior to Memorial Day) a supplemental appropriations bill to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, complete a FY2008 budget resolution to provide the Appropriations Committees with an overall funding level for domestic discretionary programs, pass a stem-cell research bill to send to the President, agree on an “innovation” agenda, and begin the process of taking up FY2008 appropriations bills.

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FY2008 BUDGET RESOLUTION

The House of Representatives still has not named conferees to negotiate differences with the Senate on their respective FY2008 Budget Resolutions. If the House and Senate Budget negotiators do not reconcile their different budget blueprints before May 15, the Appropriations Committees are allowed to begin moving spending bills without a budget framework.

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ACTIVITIES INVOLVING FY2008 APPROPRIATIONS CYCLE

• FASEB Encourages House to Support Dear Colleague Letter to Increase NIH’s Budget
   

• VA Medical Research Receives $32.5 million in Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill

• FASEB Submits Testimony to Appropriations Subcommittee for NSF Funding

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INSIDE (The Beltway) SCOOP
- Jon Retzlaff, Legislative Director

House and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairmen David Obey (D-WI) and Robert Byrd (D-WV) have indicated that they plan to begin marking up appropriations bills in mid-May. The challenge they face in reaching this goal is that the House and Senate Budget Committees have not met to conference the budget resolution, which provides the overall amount of discretionary spending that can be allocated by the different appropriations subcommittees. However, even without the final numbers, appropriations subcommittee staffs have been working overtime to prepare their respective bills for mark-up in mid-May or June.

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FLOOR ACTION

• Senate passes Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act and America Competes Act

• House passes Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act and Math/Science Scholarship Acts

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BILLS INTRODUCED

FASEB Supports Scientific Communications Act of 2007 (H.R. 1453)
The goal of the Scientific Communication Act of 2007 (H.R. 1453) is to provide training to graduate students in science on how to communicate with non-scientists, specifically policymakers. The bill, which was introduced by Congresswoman Doris Matsui (D-CA) on March 14th, would create a new, competitive grants program at NSF to fund institutional programs in communication skills development for scientists. H.R. 1453 provides very little detail on what such programs should entail, leaving that to the applicant institutions, but does require integration with existing NSF training programs, such as the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program. Because it is authorizing legislation, the bill designates new money at a level of $10 million per year for the program-- as opposed to earmarking funds during the appropriations process.

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UPCOMING HEARINGS

Senate Appropriations Subcommittee to Hold Theme Hearing on the Frontiers of Science

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CONGRESSIONAL SCHEDULE

The House and Senate are in session.

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