This action alert was sent to the Computing Research Advocacy Network (CRAN). To join CRAN, visit CRAN.
The chairs of the 110th Congressional Appropriations Committees have announced their intention to pass a continuing resolution (CR) for all of FY07, rather than complete appropriations under regular order or in an omnibus bill. This will effectively freeze funding for all science agencies at FY2006 levels, endangering significant increases in federal science funding planned for FY 2007! It is important that we do not lose the progress we have made on R&D funding so far this year.
Please contact your Representative and both Senators as soon as possible to urge them to protect the increases for FY 2007 already approved by the full House and the Senate Appropriations Committee for the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Energy Office of Science in the FY 2007 CR. All House and Senate actions to date have provided increased funding for the sciences in FY07 up until the CR.
Congress has returned to Washington and will shortly consider the CR so we must get the message to them quickly. Please consider calling or faxing your Senators and Representative’s offices with your support for including the increased funding in a CR. A phone call should take just a few minutes and is the best way to impact your Members of Congress. A faxed letter is the next best thing. Though e-mail is convenient, it’s not as effective as a call or fax to your representative, so please consider picking up the phone or firing off a fax.
Also, please send a copy of your letter (or any notes from your call) to Melissa Norr at mnorr@cra.org or fax to 202-667-1066. Having a portfolio of letters of support from our member institutions will aid us greatly in making the case for more support for IT R&D on the Hill.
For more information on this issue and sample letters, please visit: FY07 CR
A list of representative contact information is here: US House Members.
If you don’t know your representative, you can find out who it is here:
US House of Representatives
For the U.S. Senate, you can find phone numbers and fax numbers via US Senate.
The new chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus (MT), introduced legislation on the first day of the 110th Congress to permanently extend the R&D tax credit an article in Congressional Quarterly stated (Sub Req’d).
The R&D tax credit has always been a priority of the high-tech community on Capitol Hill and there have been previous attempts to make it permanent rather than extending it each year. However, the cost of such a permanent tax credit has generally kept this from happening. After much wrangling (most not related to the merits of the R&D tax credit itself, but rather the other tax proposals it was packaged with), the 109th Congress passed the R&D tax credit for 2006 retroactively in the waning days of the session in December and included the extension through 2007.
The CQ article also states that competitiveness issues will be a priority for Baucus as the chair of the Finance Committee. We certainly hope that is true, not just for the Finance Committee, but for all of Congress.
From the CCC Blog
- NSF Searching for Assistant Director for CISE Ran Libeskind-Hadas
- MIT’s Subra Suresh reportedly to be nominated as new Director of NSF Ran Libeskind-Hadas
- Eric Brewer wins ACM – Infosys Foundation Award Ed Lazowska
- Chuck Thacker wins Turing Award Ed Lazowska