Biophysical Society Newsletter | June 2017

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BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER 4 JUNE 2017
Public Affairs
BPS Members Take on
Capitol Hill
On April 25 and 26, Biophysical Society mem-
bers Kathleen Hall , Washington University, St.
Louis, and Christy Gaines, University of Mary-
land Baltimore Campus, joined over 250 other
scientists, engineers, and business leaders making
visits on Capitol Hill as part of STEM on the
Hill Congressional Visits Day. This annual event
is sponsored by the Science-Engineering-Tech-
nology Work Group, of which the Biophysical
Society is a participant. The purpose of the visits
was to educate Congress about the important role
federal funding plays in research and innovation
and to express support for sustained and predict-
able federal funding for research. This year’s Hill
visits were especially timely given that they were
a few days after the March for Science and a few
days before Congress needed to pass a budget to
fund the government for the rest of fiscal year
(FY) 2017.
Hall, a member of the BPS Public
Affairs Committee and Gaines, a
PhD student, are very interested in
advocacy, and this event gave them
an opportunity to explore those
interests and ideas on how they can
be science advocates after the event is
over. They also had the opportunity
to learn about the federal budget for
science agencies, the appropriations
process, and the legislative process
from a panel of speakers that includ-
ed representatives from the Senate,
the House of Representatives, and
the American Association for the
Advancement of Science.
Hall and Gaines, along with BPS staff member El-
len Weiss, met with staff in the offices of Senators
Roy Blunt (R-MO), Claire McCaskill (D-MO),
Tom Udall (D-NM), Martin Heinrich (D-NM),
Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Richard Burr (R-NC);
and Representatives Wm. Lacy Clay (D-MO), Ben
Ray Lujan (D-NM), Elijah Cumming (D-MD),
and Robert Pittinger (R-NC). The message shared
with all offices was that science needs predictable,
sustainable, and robust funding, with an emphasis
on the FY 2017 and FY 2018 budgets.
Congress Approves Funding
for the Rest of FY 2017
Congress finally came to an agreement on how to
fund the federal government through September
30, 2017, during the first week of May — seven
months after the start of the fiscal year. The
bipartisan bill included $2 billion for the National
Institutes of Health (NIH). While both Repub-
licans and Democrats in Congress had expressed
support for an increase to NIH, the White House
had suggested cutting several billion dollars in FY
2017 to help pay for increases in defense spending
and the construction of the border wall between
the United States and Mexico. President Trump
backed down from this request, indicating he
would work on securing funding for these priori-
ties in the FY 2018 budget.
The National Science Foundation received a
small increase of $8.7 million over FY 2016 levels,
with the increase allocated to Major Research
Equipment and the Office of Inspector General.
Funding for research and related activities was
funded at the FY 2016 amount of $6.033 billion.
The Department of Energy Office of Science also
received a small increase, with an additional $39
million to spend in FY 2017. Within the Office
of Science, advanced computing gets the biggest
bump with an extra $10 million, and the US con-
tribution to ITER, the international fusion reactor
under construction in France, takes a hit with a
$65 million decrease.
The Society put out a statement applauding Con-
gress for its support of science, in particular NIH,
when the spending bill was released. The state-
ment is available in the newsroom on the Society
website
Hall (center) and Gaines (right) meet with
Pauline Jamry, legislative director for Wm.
Lacy Clay.