FY2008 APPROPRIATIONS BILLS- OVERVIEW AND OUTLOOK

Appropriations Overview/Outlook: Debate on Earmarks & President’s Veto
Threats
The FY2008 appropriations process has gotten off to a rocky start. House Appropriations
Chairman David Obey (D-WI) was forced to reconsider his decision to withhold
earmarks until conference negotiations with the Senate after debate on the Homeland
Security Appropriations Bill stretched until 2 a.m. on Thursday, June 14, 2007.
Republicans used procedural moves to force continual debate, while criticizing
Democrats for agreeing to withhold earmarks from appropriations bills until the House –
Senate conference reports are provided to Congressional Members. It now appears that
Democrats have relented and will provide a list of all earmarks prior to consideration by
the full Appropriations Committee. This development has forced the postponement of
numerous House Appropriations Committee mark-ups to allow subcommittee staff time to review the 32,000 earmark requests and ensure that the projects meet specific
requirements.

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FY2008 HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS ALLOCATIONS

On June 5, 2007, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) announced
subcommittee allocations (commonly referred to as the 302b allocations) for each of the
twelve House Appropriations panels. On June 6, 2007, the House Appropriations
Committee ratified the allocations proposed by Chairman Obey. 

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FASEB'S 3RD ANNUAL CAPITOL HILL DAY

FASEB Board and Science Policy Committee Members Meet With 18 Congressional Offices
FASEB’s 3rd Annual “Capitol Hill Day” took place June 4-5, 2007. FASEB’s Science Policy Committee Members met with six Congressional offices and FASEB Board Members visited twelve Congressional offices. In addition, FASEB’s Board presented
Ranking Member Joe Barton (R-TX) with the 2007 FASEB Public Service Award for working very closely with FASEB on numerous issues, including helping to promote the importance of investigator-initiated research. Unfortunately, due to the Appropriations Committee mark-ups that were occurring, we had to postpone the ceremony for the other recipient of FASEB’s Public Service Award in 2007, Chairman David Obey (D-WI).

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

When the “302b” allocations for the House Appropriations Subcommittees were released, there were plenty of reasons to be optimistic. The subcommittees that have jurisdiction over the science agencies we advocate for– NIH, NSF, DOE’s Office of Science, VA’s Medical and Prosthetics Research Program, USDA’s National Research Initiative, and NASA– each received generous allocations. Also, the House Appropriations Committee provided support for our healthy dose of optimism as it recommended significant increases for NSF, DOE’s Office of Science, and VA’s Medical and Prosthetics Research Program. However, the events of the past few days signaled that we still have numerous challenges to overcome.

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BILL ACTION

On June 6th, the House passed S.5, the Senate version of the Stem Cell Research
Enhancement Act, legislation that FASEB supported, by a vote of 247-176. The House
had passed a similar bill in January, during the first 100 hours of their legislative
schedule, but the Senate version included some language related to research on
alternative means to derive pluripotent stem cells that had to be reconciled.
Unfortunately, the House vote falls far short of the numbers needed to override a
Presidential veto of the bill, which is expected at any time.

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CONGRESSIONAL SCHEDULE

The House and Senate are in session.

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