[Histonet] Legislative good news for NIH

[LuAnn Anderson]

Update on Budget Resolution


The first part of FASEB's two-part request has been (nearly) met.

Today, House and Senate Conferees to the FY2008 Budget Resolution 
agreed on a proposal to provide an additional $21 billion for 
non-defense discretionary programs (Note: FASEB's alert asked Members 
to support $22 billion). The $21 billion is significant and a victory 
for the programs that are funded out of the discretionary pie, such 
as NIH, NSF, DOE, VA, USDA and NASA. The House plans to vote on the 
budget resolution tomorrow morning, and the Senate hopes to vote on 
it tomorrow afternoon. The FY2008 Budget Resolution is expected to 
pass in both Houses of Congress.

Once the budget is passed, the Chairmen of the Appropriations 
Committees in the House and Senate will provide allocations to the 
twelve appropriations subcommittees. Therefore, you still have time 
to request that your Members of Congress support the $14 billion 
increase (over FY2007 levels) for Labor-HHS-Education programs. Thus 
far, more than 11,000 letters have been sent by FASEB society members 
to Congress.

FASEB's ALERT: http://capwiz.com/faseb/issues/alert/?alertid=9722801&type=CO

And, even though we expect Appropriations Chairmen Obey and Byrd to 
provide allocations in fairly short order, it appears that the 
appropriations subcommittees in the House will not begin marking up 
its bills until after the Memorial Day recess.

Thanks for your efforts on FASEB's Action Alert!