APS News

August/September 2002 (Volume 11, Number 8)

APS Lobbyists Work the Hill While Brinkman and Colwell Correspond

In response to severe cuts to core programs in the physical sciences at NSF, the APS has been working especially hard in the past few months, both within the administration and on Capitol Hill, to help turn the situation around.

APS lobbying efforts, spearheaded by Senior Science Policy Fellow Steve Pierson, focused on gaining support for a "Dear Colleague" letter in the House of Representatives, in which members of Congress asked their colleagues on the relevant appropriations committee to raise the NSF budget by 15% this year. By calling more than 160 Congressional offices, and personally visiting more than 75, Pierson and others in the APS Washington office led the effort that ultimately resulted in 131 members signing the letter. The appropriation for NSF will not be passed for another month or two, but in a related development, on June 5 the House overwhelmingly passed a bill that authorized a 15% increase for NSF for each of the next 3 years. [Authorization bills set policy and priorities, but the actual budget numbers are determined by the appropriation bills].

Meanwhile, on April 30, APS President Bill Brinkman wrote to NSF Director Rita R. Colwell, noting the support that APS has traditionally given the NSF. He pointed out that, in addition to its direct lobbying activity, last year APS helped with more than 2,500 letters to Congress from physicists on behalf of NSF, and this year that total has already been surpassed. Brinkman went on to detail the cuts that NSF- supported research groups had suffered, citing as examples the 23% cut that the University of Chicago particle physics group received, and 11% at Michigan State. "I strongly urge you to work toward increasing the physical sciences budget in the next years if some of the increases that you are hoping for are realized," he told the NSF Director.

Colwell replied in a letter to Brinkman dated May 28. The text of her letter is below.

letter

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Editor: Alan Chodos
Associate Editor: Jennifer Ouellette

August/September 2002 (Volume 11, Number 8)

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Articles in this Issue
APS Selects 26 as 2002-2003 Minority Scholarship Recipients
Department Chairs Confer, Drop In On Congress
Tannenbaum is New APS Congressional Fellow
Societies Honor Physics Olympiad Team
APS Fellows Win Four National Medals of Science, 1 Technology
Demand for Boycott of Israeli Science Stirs Controversy
Hamre Commission Takes Hard Look at Security Mismanagement at Weapons Labs
Scientists Toy with Origami As A Solution
APS Lobbyists Work the Hill While Brinkman and Colwell Correspond
Proposed New Department Complicates Outlook for Visas
Speaking Out In Support of Science Education Funding
APS Executive Board Passes Resolution on Perpetual Motion Machines
Letters
Viewpoint: Odds Are Stacked When Science Tries To Debate Pseudoscience
Viewpoint: Letters Reveal New Insights Into the Bohr-Heisenberg Meeting
The Back Page
Members in the Media
This Month in Physics History
Physics and Technology Forefronts
Inside the Beltway: A Washington Analysis