Sometime next week, the Senate will be voting on the supplemental appropriations bill that will add an additional $1.2b for NASA, the Department of Energy, the NIH and NSF. The NIH will receive an additional $400m and NSF will receive $200m while NASA will receive and additional $200m and DOE will get $100m including “$55,000,000 is for Fusion Energy Sciences
and $45,000,000 is for High Energy Physics.” That means that much of the funding that was snatched from ITER will be restored.  We are still piecing together where the rest of the $1.2b is going, but even small increases are a welcome change.

We are not out of the woods yet though. Many Republican Senators are threatening to oppose the bill because it is a war supplement and includes domestic spending that the President did not request (Yes, including the science funding.)  That is where you come in.

With election activities taking up the bulk of their time through the rest of the year, it is doubtful that we will see another direct opportunity to call on congress to support science. FASEB has set up an action alert and is calling on everyone to write to their Congressman and support increased funds for both NIH and the NSF. You can fill out there form here. It only takes a few minutes to tell your congressman that science is important.