AAS Informational Email 2005-13
Kevin B. Marvel, Deputy Executive Officer In the closing debate on the FY 2006 Science, State,
Commerce and Justice appropriations bill (H.R. 2862),
Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) offered an amendment
that would transfer approximately $126M from the NSF
budget to the Department of Justice to enhance the The science community as a whole is against taking funds from the NSF to fund other activities. The Congress itself has decreased the amount of funding for the COPS program from $1B when it began in 2003 to no funding in the FY 2006 bill, passed by subcommittee before being sent to the floor for a full House vote. It is clear that the program is not widely supported by members of Congress and that the amendment offered was an effort to increase the visibility of this quickly climbing member of Congress in his home district of Queens, NY. Many science societies, including the AAS, issued rapid- response Action Alerts to their members asking that they call their representatives encouraging them to vote against the amendment. I estimate more than 10,000 scientists responded to these calls to action. The amendment was resoundingly defeated in a roll call vote yesterday afternoon (6-15) 31-396. Thank you to all AAS members who took time out of their
busy schedules to make a phone call to their
representative. Every contact counts. The Senate must now
act on their version of the bill and subsequently a
conference committee will convene to iron out the
differences before passing it along to the President.
Should action be required by AAS members, an AAS Action Mailed to US members from aas.org 16 June 2005 To read previous AAS Informational Emails visit Comments and questions to: marvel@aas.org To unsubscribe or change address contact: address@aas.org
|