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Date Posted: 16:33:53 01/10/03 Fri
Author: Alexandre
Subject: Congress cuts Funds

Yesterday I received E-mail that looked so familiar to me. So familiar that felt how tears are leaking from my eyes. Would you mind if I share my feeling?

To: U.S. ARVO Members
From: Larry Takemoto, PhD, ARVO Public Policy Network Chair
Date: January 9, 2003
Re: Urgent Action Needed to Support Research Funding

Since November, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the
National Eye Institute (NEI) have been operating without a budget,
funded by act of Congress at the current 2002 appropriation level. On
Wednesday, January 8, 2003, the House Republicans endorsed their
leadership strategy for wrapping up the fiscal 2003 spending process by
passing legislation intended to be a vehicle for an omnibus
appropriations package. This means that the 11 remaining
appropriations bills will be rolled into one big bill. The Senate is
scheduled to markup all remaining appropriations bills today, Friday,
January 10, 2003.

The Senate is expected to take up this measure and amend it to include
an omnibus spending bill covering programs in the 11 appropriations
bills not yet enacted into law, and ask for a conference with
appropriators from the House. The conference agreement on this
resolution, expected at the end of the month, would therefore
effectively be an omnibus appropriations bill for all agencies and
programs normally covered by the 11 separate bills.

WHAT THIS MEANS TO YOU.....

To meet President Bush's demand that discretionary appropriations be
limited to $750.5 billion, Senate appropriators will have to cut at
least $9 billion from FY ‘03 bills reported by the Senate
Appropriations Committee last year. The Senate version of the
Labor/HHS bill will most likely take the hardest hit, a $2.7 billion
cut to $131.4 billion. This will significantly and severely impact NIH
and funding that will be available for research, particularly the
funding that will be passed on to a mid-size institute like NEI.

WHAT YOU CAN DO...

This is the time for you to call your representatives in the House and
Senate to encourage them to support eye and vision research! Visit
http://www.eyeresearch.org/naevr/dbq/officials/ to find contact
information for your Representative, Senator, and their senior staff.
Remind them of the critical importance of your research work and tell
them to support medical research by supporting only those
appropriations that complete the three year doubling of the NIH budget
started in 1999 and protect the $692 million FY'03 appropriation for
NEI approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee last year. Every
call, letter, fax, and e-mail is critical at this time. If you have
questions, please contact:

Robert Rupp
ARVO Governance Manager
Tel: 240-221-2912
Fax: 240-221-0370
E-mail: rrupp@arvo.org
12300 Twinbrook Parkway, Suite 250
Rockville, MD 20852

For more information on NIH funding and the budget process, visit:
http://www.eyeresearch.org/naevr/legupdate.html

Stay informed on policy issues and take action to protect eye and
vision research...join the ARVO Public Policy network...post e-mail to
rrupp@arvo.org to join.

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