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INSIDE (THE BELTWAY) SCOOP- Jon
Retzlaff, LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR
In an effort to make policymakers aware of the
numerous issues that are important to our
organization, many of FASEB’s Board and Science
Policy Committee members will be participating
in our 3rd annual “Capitol Hill Day” on June
4-5, 2007. FASEB’s leadership will discuss and
highlight the benefits and importance of
federally funded support for biomedical,
physical science, agricultural, VA, and space
research, as well as letting Congress know how
vital animal research is to uncovering
scientific discoveries.
In this period of constrained budgets and
competing priorities, it is especially important
that Members of Congress hear from us. After
all, Members of Congress and their staff respond
to their constituents’ interests, and we need to
make sure that our issues are brought to their
attention.
FASEB’s Office of Public Affairs is not the only
one organizing efforts to take our message to
Capitol Hill. FASEB’s member societies are
setting aside time at their annual meetings to
prepare their members for visits, as well as
accompany them on the visits. For example,
public affairs staff from the six participating
societies (APS, ASBMB, AAA, ASPET, ASN, and ASIP)
in last month’s Experimental Biology conference
in Washington, D.C., organized hundreds of
visits to the Hill.
In addition, the American Physiological Society
(APS) organized a communications symposium
titled, “Making the case for federally-funded
research: Communicating with Congress.” I
participated in the symposium as part of a panel
to explore ways to communicate about science,
work with Congressional staff, develop ongoing
relationships with lawmakers, and effectively
convey both the local and national importance of
federally funded biomedical research.
Finally, at last week’s AAI annual meeting,
Lauren Gross, Director of Public Policy and
Government Affairs, and Kimberly Handler,
Legislative Aide for AAI, facilitated a session
titled, “Advocating for Biomedical Research: The
Top Ten Things You Should NOT Say While
Educating Lawmakers.” The first part of the
program involved four members of AAI’s Committee
on Public Affairs discussing their specific
visits to Capitol Hill. On the second panel,
Gary Kline, Legislative Assistant for
Congressman Brian Bilbray (R-CA) provided
information about what a typical day is like for
a Member of Congress, and I informed audience
members what life is like for a Congressional
staffer, as well as provided advice to society
members when meeting with their respective
Members of Congress.
These efforts appear to be paying off because
many staffers have told me that they have been
meeting and hearing from scientists more than
during previous periods.
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BILL ACTION: FARM BILL MARKUP
On May 23, 2007, the House Agriculture
Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy and
Research marked up four titles of the 2007 Farm
Bill, including the Research title. The link
below will take you to the House’s Farm Bill
page that includes proposed language, analyses
and amendments; and it will be updated
throughout the process.
http://agriculture.house.gov/inside/2007FarmBill.html
Mary Lee Watts, Director of Public Policy and
Communications for the American Society for
Nutrition, informed us that the proposed
research title language would establish 6
Agricultural Research Institutes, each with its
own Director, at USDA under the Undersecretary
for Research, Education and Economics. One
Institute is devoted to food safety, nutrition
and health. However, the language also
establishes a National Institute for Food and
Agriculture (NIFA) at USDA, under CSREES, to
administer all competitive grants. Under NIFA,
$200 million from the funding for the Institute
for Future Food and Agricultural Systems (IFFAS)
is authorized to be used. Despite the
establishment of NIFA at CSREES, the title
proposes to reauthorize the National Research
Initiative (NRI), and at $500 million.
Carrie Wolinetz, FASEB’s Director of
Communications, provided the following
highlights, and she plans to keep FASEB society
members informed of any information as to how
the Senate and broader community are reacting to
the proposal.
• Sec 1701: Requires President to submit a
single line item in the annual budget for all
agriculture research, extension and related
activities: It is unclear whether this is
government-wide agriculture-related research or
only at USDA; would nutrition research at NIH
count, for example? Also uncertain is the motive
behind this; is this an attempt to gather
difficult information or an effort to hide
programs behind one large item?
• Sec. 7103, 7105, 7106, etc. Restructuring
of USDA Research: This bill would create a
new Agriculture Research Institute which is
actually a collective of six, topic specific
institutes whose staff is limited to 30 FTE’s
total (not per institute) including 6 high
profile institute directors. Although tasked
with coordinating and directing all research
activities of the USDA in an “integrated,
multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary,
interagency, and inter-institutional manner,”
apparently this doesn’t include extramural,
competitive, earmarked or new research programs
because the bill also creates a National
Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under
CSREES. Although the bill says NIFA shall
administer “all competitive grants,” it also
reauthorizes the National Research Initiative
Competitive Grants Program, and earmarks quite a
few separate competitive research programs and
lab networks (bioenergy, specialty crops, etc.)
• Sec 7105: An 8th Institute or a sneaky way
to fund IFAFS? This section is tremendously
confusing, particularly because the staff
summary does not match the bill language and
it’s unclear whether the “Institute for Future
Food and Agricultural Systems” is simply a
mistype of “Initiative for Future Agricultural
and Food Systems” (IFAFS) which currently exists
or a new entity. IFAFS is hated by appropriators
– although it has been authorized for a long
time, it has essentially never been funded. This
section takes 30 percent of appropriated funds
from NRI and uses it to fund IFAFS activities,
while taking the authorized money for IFAFS and
giving it to NRI. Essentially, this would result
in real money being lost from competitive
research at NRI and replaced with non-existent
dollars. What’s especially odd about this is
that transfer is not reflected in the
reauthorization level for NRI listed in the
staff summary as the same $500 million (although
no number is cited in the actual bill).
• Confusing authorization levels: The
Research Title is striking in its lack of
authorization levels, despite creating a host of
new entities and programs. There is either no
funding level mentioned or odd language such as
“shall fund each research institute through
appropriations available to the various agencies
within the mission area.” Only earmarks for
targeted programs, reauthorized programs, or
what appears to be an inserted stand-alone bill
on viruses (see later bullet) list authorization
levels.
• Sec. 7111: Live virus bill: Based on
its structure, it would seem that this section
is a non-introduced stand-alone bill that has
been inserted. It gives the Secretary the
authority to create a list of viruses that could
cause harm to livestock and prohibit their
transportation, storage, importation, use, etc.
without special permission. Although there is
language to prevent this from applying to
viruses on the USDA select agent list, it does
beg the question: if we already have a select
agent law and list that does this, why do we
need another?
• Pilot biomedical-agriculture combo research
program: The bill authorizes a 3-year, $10
million per year pilot research program to link
major cancer and heart disease research efforts
with ag research efforts to find compounds in
fruits and vegetables that prevent these
diseases.
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CONGRESSIONAL SCHEDULE
The House and Senate are in recess until June 4,
2007.
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WASHINGTON UPDATE |
