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The APS is asking all its members to write their representatives immediately.  The congress is expected to vote Thursday or Friday.  See a copy of the email and links to letters below.

+++++++++++++++++++++

From:  Arthur Bienenstock, President, the American Physical Society
To:     Members of the American Physical Society
Re:     Federal Funding Alert — URGENT:

http://www.congressweb.com/cweb4/index.cfm?orgcode=apspa&hotissue=79

I am writing to request that you IMMEDIATELY contact your elected
representatives and let them know that the proposed Continuing
Resolution for Fiscal Year 2009 would be extremely damaging to
basic research.  You can make this contact quickly and easily at:

http://www.congressweb.com/cweb4/index.cfm?orgcode=apspa&hotissue=79

There, you will find pre-written messages to your Senators and
Representatives. You may send these letters as they are, modify
them, or write your own.  While individualizing your letter is not
essential, please at least make minor edits to the subject line and
the first line of the text of each email so that these emails are
more individualized.  (See webpage pointers below for further instruction.)

Congress has not passed any FY 2009 appropriations bills and is now
finalizing a Continuing Resolution (CR) that will keep the government
operating when the new fiscal year begins on October 1, 2008.  The
House is expected to consider the bill on Thursday or Friday of this
week.  The CR, according to the latest information, will remain in
effect until March 6, 2009 and would keep all federal programs
operating at FY 2008 levels, except those granted waivers.  At this
time, science is not on the waiver list, and the proposed bill would
not include any of the science increases contained in the
Supplemental Appropriations bill Congress passed earlier this year.
Unless science receives a waiver, the impact will be extraordinarily
damaging.

Specifically,

.Department of Energy user facilities would be forced to cut back
operations substantially;
.A new round of layoffs at the national laboratories could occur;
.The number of university grants would be cut, with new, young
investigators especially harmed; and
.The U.S. would be forced to cut to near zero its planned contributions
to the global fusion energy project, ITER, damaging the nation’s
ability to participate in future international scientific collaborations.

The attached letter would request that Congress include the funding
increases approved by Congress earlier this year in the FY08 Supplemental
Appropriations bill for the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of
Science, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes
of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) and to allow the DOE to use the $124 million in FY 08 Office
of Science earmarks for programmatic purposes.

WEBPAGE POINTERS:
(1) While individualizing your letter is not essential, we ask that
you make minor edits to the subject line and the first line of
the text of each email.
(2) If you are a government employee, please do not use government
resources to send a communication.
(3) Your browser will take you to a page where you will enter your
name and address.
(4) After entering your address, click the .Edit/Send Email button..
A window with an individual email message to the four offices
will appear. Click .Send Emails. to transmit the communication.
(5) Electronic submission is preferred.
(6) For further help, write to opa@aps.org.

The APS is asking all its members to write their representatives immediately.  The congress is expected to vote Thursday or Friday.  See a copy of the email and links to letters below.

+++++++++++++++++++++

From:  Arthur Bienenstock, President, the American Physical Society
To:     Members of the American Physical Society
Re:     Federal Funding Alert — URGENT:

http://www.congressweb.com/cweb4/index.cfm?orgcode=apspa&hotissue=79

I am writing to request that you IMMEDIATELY contact your elected
representatives and let them know that the proposed Continuing
Resolution for Fiscal Year 2009 would be extremely damaging to
basic research.  You can make this contact quickly and easily at:

http://www.congressweb.com/cweb4/index.cfm?orgcode=apspa&hotissue=79

There, you will find pre-written messages to your Senators and
Representatives. You may send these letters as they are, modify
them, or write your own.  While individualizing your letter is not
essential, please at least make minor edits to the subject line and
the first line of the text of each email so that these emails are
more individualized.  (See webpage pointers below for further instruction.)

Congress has not passed any FY 2009 appropriations bills and is now
finalizing a Continuing Resolution (CR) that will keep the government
operating when the new fiscal year begins on October 1, 2008.  The
House is expected to consider the bill on Thursday or Friday of this
week.  The CR, according to the latest information, will remain in
effect until March 6, 2009 and would keep all federal programs
operating at FY 2008 levels, except those granted waivers.  At this
time, science is not on the waiver list, and the proposed bill would
not include any of the science increases contained in the
Supplemental Appropriations bill Congress passed earlier this year.
Unless science receives a waiver, the impact will be extraordinarily
damaging.

Specifically,

.Department of Energy user facilities would be forced to cut back
operations substantially;
.A new round of layoffs at the national laboratories could occur;
.The number of university grants would be cut, with new, young
investigators especially harmed; and
.The U.S. would be forced to cut to near zero its planned contributions
to the global fusion energy project, ITER, damaging the nation’s
ability to participate in future international scientific collaborations.

The attached letter would request that Congress include the funding
increases approved by Congress earlier this year in the FY08 Supplemental
Appropriations bill for the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of
Science, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes
of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) and to allow the DOE to use the $124 million in FY 08 Office
of Science earmarks for programmatic purposes.

WEBPAGE POINTERS:
(1) While individualizing your letter is not essential, we ask that
you make minor edits to the subject line and the first line of
the text of each email.
(2) If you are a government employee, please do not use government
resources to send a communication.
(3) Your browser will take you to a page where you will enter your
name and address.
(4) After entering your address, click the .Edit/Send Email button..
A window with an individual email message to the four offices
will appear. Click .Send Emails. to transmit the communication.
(5) Electronic submission is preferred.
(6) For further help, write to opa@aps.org.

As you know, this site has long provided links (with credit) to the AIP FYI bulletins on the left side of the page. Recently, the AIP started blocking access to their site from scienceaction.org. This has prevented the ability to gather the links from their site, or from their RSS feed, and place them on the page. We are trying to contact and work with the appropriate administrators at AIP to resolve this problem.

NOTE: This problem was resolved in late July. We are grateful to the AIP for their timely response to our e-mails. In gratitude for their restoration of access to their site, we intend to rewrite the FYI headline harvesting script to be kinder to their servers.

AIP article on the Senate DOE Office of Science Appropriations Bill.    The article includes links to the entire text of the bill.

http://www.aip.org/fyi/2008/078.html

Politico has a short article on science groups’ efforts to lobby for a small chunk of additional money in the war supplemental spending bill now working its way through Congress. This is a nice summary of efforts both by science groups and industry to get Congress and the President to do more than talk about supporting science:

“Science groups want war cash” - Politico

The APS, together with several other science and engineering organizations, is holding a “Campaign Workshop” on May 10th, to educate those who may be interested in running for local office.

More information regarding the event, including how to register, can be found at:

http://elections.sefora.org

Here is another professional society calling for supplemental spending on science:

“American Statistical Association Urges Funding for Science Research and Education in FY 2008 Supplemental Funding Legislation”

I found this article in Forbes today. It’s about two weeks old, but it may be useful information for anyone looking to connect their own scientific work to the context of American comptetiveness.

“Leading Business,
Higher Education, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
Organizations Call for Supplemental Funding for Critical Research and
Education Priorities“

Here is the website of TAP (Tapping America’s Potential):

http://tap2015.org/

This is the coalition that urged the President and Congress to support science in the FY2008 supplemental.

In addition, the optics community is also lauding the bi-partisan Senate coalition trying to work science into the supplemental:

“Senate Science Funding Support Lauded By Optics Community”

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The American Physical Society (APS) has an on-going letter drive calling for support of supplemental spending on science in FY08. This spending would ameliorate some of the losses in the FY08 Consolidated Appropriatons Act (omnibus bill), passed in December 2007 and signed into law by the President earlier this year. The APS letter asks for Congressional support for about $500 million dollars, to be split between several federal science agencies.

All it takes is a few minutes to prepare the letters, using APS’s online form. If you’re interested in calling for support, please go to the following location to begin:

http://www.congressweb.com/cweb4/index.cfm?orgcode=apspa&hotissue=77

The President’s science and technology advisor testified this week about the proposed FY08 funding. The testimony is available here:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=23342