1. Public Policy Forum Tutorial on Congressional Processes Janie Fouke Case Western Reserve University April 10, 1998

2. Budget Development Office of Managment and Budget iterates with Agencies House and Senate each have: –Budget Committee (planning) –Authorization Committee (oversight) –Appropriation Committee

3. NSF’s Congressional Players House: Science Committee/Subcom- mittee on Basic Research Appropriations Subcommittee on VA, HUD and Independent Agencies Senate: Labor/Human Resources and Commerce, Science and Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee on VA, HUD and Independent Agencies

4. NIH’s Congressional Players House: Commerce Committee/Subcom- mittee on Health and the Environment Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee Senate: Labor and Human Resource Committee/Subcom- mittee on Health Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee

5. The times, they are a’changing One must be RELEVANT in the current environment (Boomer Power!) Defense agencies: Strategic issues (big weapons, planes, etc) vs. Tactical issues (social relevance)

6. Tactical Issues Protecting the environment Advanced communication technologies Improved and/or more effective health care

7. “Dual Use” Sonar to ultrasound Telerobotics to remote surgery Degradation of warfare chemicals to degradation of insecticides

8. Issues relevant to health care Weapons laboratories are anxious to apply their technologies to biomedical problems Health care cost containment issues are popular Is money likely to move from one Agency budget to another?

9. How big an increase? Gramm-Leiberman: double the research funding within five years NIH’s status as the favorite child

10. The favorite child? The politics of disease –It’s familiar The politics of perception –The confusion of the “applied” vs “basic” issue

11. The Percentage Mystique Talking about the budget in terms of “% change” seems to obscure the magnitude of priority shifts. Why else would 11% seem less than $1,200,000,000?

12. FASEB consensus conference Federation of Americal Societies of Experimental Biologists hold an annual conference to recommend a unified funding portifolio. This year’s conference was ruled by the lobbyists!

13. The debate is “how” not “whether” Senate is split over how to fund the increases for research. Domenici and some Republicans: Use the existing pot for domestic discretionary programs White House, Democrats: Soak the tobacco industry The lobyist’s nightmare!

14. “What’s a girl to do?” With all that money, that is! The scrambling at NIH to have a plan for an extra $1.2 B after LAST year’s scrambling! You can’t decide later!

15. Cruisin’ Congress’ homepage is at http://thomas.loc.gov/ NSF’s legislative affairs homepage http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/congress/start.htm NIH’s homepage is at http://www.nih.gov