science: November 2007 Archives

ASBMB and biomedical research very much need ten minutes of your time today to help insure that funding at the National Institutes of Health increases this year.As expected, the President vetoed the 2008 Labor/HHS/Education bill this morning, November 13. The bill contains over a 3 percent increase for the NIH, thus allowing the agency's budget to keep up with inflation for the first time since 2003.

It is very important that you contact your Member of Congress (and Senators) and urge him or her to vote to override the President's veto. It is particularly important that you do so if you are represented by one of the following Republican House members:

• Dent, Charles (PA)


• English, Philip (PA)


• Murphy, Tim (PA)


• Peterson, John (PA)


• Platts, Todd (PA)

from a recent email from ASBMB:

Alert: The President has threatened to veto the modest increases in NIH funding proposed by Congress.

What We Need From You: Your calls or e-mails to the White House urging the President not to veto the 2008 Labor/HHS/Education appropriations bill.

Background: The FY2008 Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations bill (which allocates funding for the NIH and other federal agencies) has been approved by both houses of Congress and sent to the President for his signature.

The bill allocates $30 billion for NIH, a 3.1% increase over FY 2007, the first increase since 2003 that keeps the agency's budget even with inflation. The President has threatened to veto the bill because (among other reasons) the total spending in the bill is about $10 billion above his budget request.

It is unclear at this point whether there will be enough votes to override a veto in the House or the Senate. Therefore it is crucial that we do our best to discourage the President from casting a veto in the first place. It is critical that we protect the modest increase for NIH in the L/HHS bill because there could be no NIH increase at all this year if the bill is vetoed.


Action: Please contact the White House and urge the President to support biomedical research and sign the 2008 Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations bill.

Please contact the White House at:

Email: comments@whitehouse.gov

Phone: 202-456-1111

Contact us if you have questions:

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pbs and nova are getting ready to air 'judgement day', get your tivo and/or dvd-recorders ready (don't know if there is a webcast).  if you are from pennsylvania; this is a piece of our history.  if you are from state college -- then you should check it out due to the interesting comments by our recently elected school board members (the link to the comments and subsequent letters are 'broken' on the cdt site....).
if you don't feel like clicking further, read this:

Teaching intelligent design in public school biology classes violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (and Article I, Section 3 of the Pennsylvania State Constitution) because intelligent design is not science and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."

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