OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT RELATIONS
Legislation and Policy Report
January 2008
WASHINGTON, D. C.
The House of Representatives reconvened for the beginning of
the second session of the 110th Congress on January 15 with
members of the Senate returning on January 22. President George
Bush delivered his final State of the Union address on January
28 and will introduce his final budget (FY2009) on February
4.
First up for the Senate was debate on legislation addressing
health care programs for Native Americans and consideration
of changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (S.
2440). The first major legislative action by the House was an
effort to override President Bush’s veto of the most recent
version of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program
extension. And, both chambers tackled economic stimulus legislation
following weak national economy reports.
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Budget and Appropriations:
FY2008 postscript – After a months-long
disagreement about the overall level of discretionary funding,
Congress and President Bush agreed on a spending limit in late
December. The final omnibus appropriations bill increases funding
for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science (after
removing earmarks) by 2.6 percent; for the National Science
Foundation by 2.5 percent; and for the National Institute of
Standards and Technology Scientific and Technical Research and
Services by 1.4 percent. Three science and technology organizations
issued statements highly critical of the funding levels. One
statement said, “The President and Congress, for all their
stated support this year for making basic research in the physical
sciences and engineering a top budget priority ended up essentially
cutting, or flat-funding, key science agencies after accounting
for inflation.”
FY08 supplemental – The Energy Sciences
Coalition sent letters to President Bush, key federal agency
officials, and congressional leaders on January 28 urging them
to provide $300 million in additional FY08 funding for the Department
of Energy (DOE) Office of science. The purpose is to make up
for reductions caused by the final omnibus FY08 appropriations
bill. The letter asks the President and Congress to add $75
million to the economic stimulus package to prevent imminent
layoffs at DOE national laboratories, user facilities, universities
and industry facilities. It asks that an additional $225 million
be added to an FY08 supplemental funding package to prevent
a “significant and permanent loss of vital US scientific
capabilities.”
FY2009 – President Bush will submit
his final federal budget to Congress during the first week in
February. The president is expected to propose a $3 trillion
budget that will call for large cuts in the growth of Medicare
and significant savings in Medicaid. The budget is not expected
to include a full year of funding to support the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan. The request will be approximately $70 billion
which would support continued combat operations for several
months, until the new president takes office.
Earmarks – A group of lawmakers led
by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and
Jim DeMint (R-SC) has attacked earmarks, saying they waste money
and corrupt the legislative process. A larger number of lawmakers
avidly seek them and boast of success in securing money for
constituents. Republicans received about 40 percent of the earmarks
in the FY2008 spending bills.
A new summary by the Office of Management and Budget reported
that the 2008 spending bills signed by the president include
more than 11,700 earmarks totaling $16.9 billion. By White House
accounts the number was down 1,754 and the funding level was
$2.1 billion or 11 percent less than FY2005. Nearly one-fifth
of the earmarks and more than one-third of the funds were in
the Defense Department appropriations bill.
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Higher Education:
Higher Education Act reauthorization – The
Senate approved its version of the HEA reauthorization legislation
(S. 1642) in July 2007 and the House is expected to consider
its committee-approved version (HR 4137) early this year. Great
concern has been expressed about a provision in the House bill
that would reopen the debate on who defines standards for student
achievement, moving the responsibility from institutions to
accreditors. There is optimism that the higher education community
and Committee staff have developed language that will balance
the needs of institutions with the public responsibilities of
accreditors. The agreed-upon proposal retains the Senate legislative
language that clarifies the role of institutions and accrediting
agencies in establishing standards. The higher education community
is working with Committee members in the hope that it will be
included in the “manager’s amendment” that
will be added to the legislation on the House floor.
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NASA:
Shuttle news - NASA Administrator Michael
Griffin told a Senate subcommittee that his agency will not
have a replacement system for five years after the Space Shuttle
is retired in September 2010. The five year gap, which has been
the subject of other Congressional hearings, was a source of
great concern to the senators. Assembling the remaining components
of the International Space Station (ISS) calls for a tight schedule,
and senators expressed frustration that scientific payloads
may be left on the ground. A lack of funding is the chief constraint,
with Mr. Griffin telling the subcommittee, “I don’t
want to leave this hearing or this committee with the impression
that we are in a good position. We are not.”
The agency’s launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis has slipped
to late January with a push to early February likely as engineering
work to replace a faulty fuel tank connector continues. Atlantis’
planned 11-day mission to deliver a new European laboratory
to the International Space Station (ISS) has been delayed since
early December when vital fuel gauge sensors failed standard
countdown checks.
Hubble Space Telescope – The Hubble
Space Telescope is set for a major tune-up and upgrade. The
fifth and final service mission is tentatively scheduled for
August 7 aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis. The launch date is dependent
upon shuttle flights between now and the servicing mission.
During the Hubble service mission astronauts will install two
new science instruments plus a set of gyroscopes to help stabilize
the instrument. Batteries and thermal blankets to keep the observatory
functioning until at least 2013 will be installed also. Scientists
expect to breathe new and improved life into the Hubble. The
space telescope has far outlived is expected space life.
Moon to Mars initiative – NASA’s
10 regional field centers have been assigned their respective
roles in developing the Ares 5 heavy-lift rocket, lunar lander
and other hardware the US needs to return humans to the Moon
at the end of the next decade. Glenn Research Center (GRC) has
been assigned the lead in developing the lunar lander’s
ascent stage – the rocket engine that will be used to
leave the Moon’s surface – and the Ares 5’s
power systems, thrust vector control system and payload shroud.
GRC engineers will be responsible for testing the Earth-departure
stage to the rigors of the space environment at Plum Brook Station.
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National Institutes of Health:
Open access – The National Institutes
of Health (NIH) issued its updated policy on open access, which
describes how investigators and institutions should submit results
of their NIH-funded research for public posting on the NIH Pub-Med
web site. Previous NIH policy made such electronic submissions
voluntary, but language in the FY08 omnibus appropriations package
(P.L. 110-161) makes submission mandatory. The revised policy
is available at: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-033.html
Conflict of interest – A new report
from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the Department
of Health and Human Services (HHS) calls on the NIH to better
monitor conflicts of interest reported by grantee institutions
and to require grantees to report details to NIH on the conflicts
they report. The recommendations are based on results of an
OIG review that found that NIH was unable to provide all of
the conflict-of-interest reports that it had received from grantee
institutions over a two-year period; and, that at least 89 percent
of those provided did not state the nature of the conflicts
or how they were being managed by the institutions.
Specifically, the HHS IG recommends that NIH:
• Step up oversight of grantee institutions to ensure
compliance with financial conflicts-of-interest regulations.
• Require grantee institutions to provide specifics on
financial conflicts of interest cases and how they were managed,
reduced, or eliminated.
• Require that NIH institutes forward to the Office of
Extramural Research (OER) all financial conflict-of-interest
reports received from grantee institutions and ensure that OER’s
conflict-of-interest database contains information on all conflict-of-interest
reports provided by the grantee institution.
NIH concurred with two of the recommendations but did not agree
with the recommendation to require grantee institutions to provide
details about individual cases of financial conflicts of interest
and their resolution. The report, “Conflicts of Interest
in Extramural Research (OEI-03-06-00460),” is available
at: http://www.oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-03-06-00460.
FY08 fiscal policy for grant awards – The
agency released its fiscal policy guidance for grant awards.
The document adjusts the agency’s fiscal policy set during
the series of continuing resolutions last fall and reflects
approval of the FY08 omnibus appropriations bill. The omnibus
bill provided the agency with a budget of $29.2 billion, a one-percent
increase over FY07 funding. The policy guidance gives individual
institutes discretion about allocating the adjustment, but states:
• Non-competing awards will receive an overall increase
of only one percent, rather than the three percent inflation
increases expected previously.
• Average cost of competing grants will be allowed to
increase by one percent, which will allow NIH to support an
estimated 9,700 new grants in FY08.
• NIH will seek to fund a number of new investigators
comparable to the average of the past five years.
• Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award
(NRSA) stipends, tuition and training related expenses will
be flat funded at FY07 levels.
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National Science Foundation:
Competitiveness – The National Science
Board (NSB), the oversight body of the National Science Foundation
(NSF), released a statement that raised serious questions about
the future of US high technology competitiveness and highly
skilled jobs at home due to declining support for US research
and development.
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Taxes/Endowments:
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking
Member Charles Grassley (R-R-IA) wrote to 136 colleges and universities
with endowments of $500 million or higher, asking a series of
questions about endowment growth and spending on student aid
policies. The Committee has jurisdiction over tax policy, including
tax-exempt policy that covers colleges and universities. Federal
law requires that most private foundations pay out 5 percent
of their assets each year toward their charitable purpose. No
such requirement exists for college and university endowments.
Senators Baucus and Grassley and their Committee are concerned
about rising tuition costs and increases in college and university
presidents’ salaries and that institutions of higher learning
are not directing enough of their endowment return toward student
aid that would help keep tuition increases in check. The letter
was issued on January 25 with responses due on February 25.
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Odds and Ends:
Climate science – Members of the House
Oversight and Government Reform Committee disagreed over White
House policies on federal officials speaking to the news media
and the content of administration documents. Democrats charged
that the policies were an effort to manipulate climate change
science and mislead policymakers and the public. Republicans
countered that the instances cited were part of the traditional
agency and interagency review process.
Competitiveness – Norman Augustine released
an essay highlighting threats to US competitiveness, and reiterated
the recommendations of the 2005 report, “Rising Above
the Gathering Storm.” Mr. Augustine described the importance
of reforming the nation’s K-12 education system, and the
need for the federal government to increase its investment in
basic research.
Presidential Election–The crowded Democratic
field of candidates seeking the party’s presidential nomination
thinned following the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, Senators Christopher Dodd
(D-CT) and Joe Biden (D-DE), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and
former Senator John Edwards have withdrawn from the race.
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson
and former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani dropped out of the crowded
Republican field of presidential candidates following the South
Carolina and Florida primary elections.
Presidential campaigns on S&T – The American Association
for the Advancement of Science and the Association of American
Universities have developed a web site to serve as a science
and technology (S&T) resource for the 2008 presidential
candidates and to provide the S&T community and others with
the candidates’ positions on S&T issues. The site,
“Science and Technology in the 2008 Election,” includes
news updates, links to the candidates’ S&T statements
and positions, reports, surveys and events. To visit the site
go to: http://election2008.aaas.org
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Comings and Goings:
Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) and Rep.
Tom Davis (R-VA) announced that he will not seek re-election
in 2008. This brings the total to 28 Republican members who
will retire from the House at the end of this year. Six Democratic
members have announced they will not seek re-election.
The disparity in open seats, typically the most competitive,
makes it highly unlikely that the Republicans could seize the
seats necessary to regain the House. The current House has 199
Republicans and 232 Democrats with four vacancies to be filled
by special elections.
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THE BUCKEYE STATE
The 127th General Assembly reconvened for its second session
this month with the expectation that there will be limited official
session days due to the 2008 elections.
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General Assembly Leadership:
The Democratic leadership team in the Senate experienced a major
shake-up early in the month when a coalition of Senate Democrats
moved to make widespread changes. Senator Ray Miller (Columbus)
has replaced Senator Theresa Fedor (Toledo) as Minority Leader.
Others on the leadership team include:
• Senator Shirley Smith (Cleveland) – Assistant
Minority Leader
• Senator Lance Mason (Cleveland) – Minority Whip
• Senator Capri Cafaro (Hubbard) – Assistant Minority
Whip.
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State Budget:
On January 31, only seven months into his first two-year operating
budget, Governor Ted Strickland announced steps to address a
projected budget shortfall that is predicted to fall in the
range between $773 million and $1.9 billion. The Governor directed
state agencies to implement more than $733 million in cost savings,
management strategies, program reductions and efficiencies.
The Governor added that if financial conditions worsen he will
seek additional funds that may be needed to balance the budget
from the state’s $1 billion rainy day fund. By law the
state must balance its two year operating budget that concludes
on June 30, 2009.
The Governor’s plan will allow the state to continue
tax reform passed by previous legislatures, the newly created
homestead tax cut, children’s health care expansion, the
tuition freeze for state colleges and universities, and increased
funding for local school districts.
The Board of Regents’ budget will adjust its cash management
strategies and develop a revised disbursement schedule for three
new programs – Choose Ohio First Scholarship, Ohio Research
Scholars, and James A. Rhodes Scholarship – that will
generate $90 million savings in FY08.
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Board of Regents:
Rep. Shawn Webster (R-53), member of the House Finance and Appropriations
Committee and chairman of its subcommittee on higher education,
introduced H.B. 381, which is a technical correction and re-appropriation
bill that makes minor changes to H.B. 119 (FY2008-09 Biennial
Operating Budget Bill). H.B. 381 will re-appropriate $12 million
per year or $24 million for the biennium from Economic Growth
Challenge, $3 million from the Research Facility Action and
Investment Funds and $1 million from the Eminent Scholars to
the Research Scholars program. The legislation also permits
non-public four year institutions of higher education to submit
a proposal to the Ohio Research Scholars program to recruit
scientific faculty if the institution partners with a state
college or university in submitting a proposal. The bill does
not alter funding for the Innovation Incentive and Commercialization
Incentive programs as appropriated in HB 119.
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LOCALLY…
Cleveland City Councilwoman Patricia Britt (Ward 6)
has resigned to become Clerk of City Council, replacing Emily
Lipovan, who resigned in December.
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Sources of information for this report include the Association
of American Universities, American Institute of Physics, the
Chronicle of Higher Education, the Association of Independent
Colleges and Universities of Ohio’s updates and reports,
newspapers, political and legislative wire services, and others.
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