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APAGS ACT Action Alerts
RECENT ACTION ALERTS
 4/05 Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act – ACTION ALERT
10/05 NIH Funding in Danger
Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act – ACTION ALERT
April 2005
Dear Colleagues:
YOU can help! If you have a few minutes today or tomorrow, we would like to ask you to contact your member in the U.S. House of Representatives regarding funding in FY'06 for the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act programs.
Representatives Danny K. Davis (D-IL), Tom Osborne (R-NE) and Bart Gordon (D-TN) are circulating the "Dear Colleague Letter" to request additional Members of the U.S. House of Representatives to sign on to the "Funding Request Letter." Both letters can be found here [PDF]. This effort is to garner support for increased funding for all provisions of the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act in FY'06.
Weighing in with your Member of Congress can make a significant difference in whether or not they will go on record supporting an increase in funding for these programs so please take a moment and give a call.
Message:
Please call your member of the U.S. House of Representatives (your Representative can be found by visiting www.house.gov and typing in your zip code in the box at the top) and ask to speak with the person handling suicide issues or mental health funding issues.
When speaking to staff (or leaving a message for them), please let them know your name, that you are a constituent, and that you would like the Representative to sign on to the "Funding Request Letter" being circulated by Representatives Davis, Osborne and Gordon regarding FY'06 funding for the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act. The staff should have received a copy of the letter yesterday. You can also let them know, based on your work in their district, why this type of funding is important in their community!
Public Policy Advocacy Network
Public Policy Office
American Psychological Association
750 First Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002-4242
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NIH Funding in Danger - Enter your Zip Code and Act Now!
October 2005
Dear Colleagues,
As you know, the federal government has not yet approved funding for the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The House of Representatives passed a bill that would provide only a one-half percent increase for NIH for Fiscal Year 2006, but the Senate version of the bill has not been debated. Because FY 2006 began on October 1 without its funding determined, NIH has been operating under a continuing resolution (CR). In English, that means it is funded with a temporary law at the current FY 2005 levels. Given biomedical inflation, no increase for NIH institutes is effectively a cut in funding.
We have learned that there is a real danger that if the Senate FY 2006 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill is not taken up by the full Senate and passed, that the House may refuse to conference the Senate Appropriations Committee approved bill and resort, instead, to a year-long CR. If the terms of that CR are similar to the current CR, which funds the government through November 18, this means the funding levels that will prevail will be the LOWER of the FY 2005 level (no increase), House-passed (one-half percent increase), or Senate Appropriations Committee-approved level (3.7 percent increase). In that scenario, NIH would likely receive no increase at all. That's why it is important that the Senate bill be approved by the full Senate, so the two versions of the bill can be "conferenced" and improve the odds that NIH will receive a workable increase in funding.
Please contact your senators now. Thank you!
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Page updated: February 17, 2006
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