Biophysical Society Bulletin | September 2019

Public Affairs

Applications Are Open for the Biophysical Society 2020–2021 Congressional Fellowship Interested in using your science skills to inform science policy? Does spending a year working on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, helping develop policy sound exciting? The Biophysical Society’s Congressional Fellowship program is your opportunity to participate directly in the process of law-making that impacts how research is funded and regulated. This year-long opportu- nity provides fellows a chance to utilize their science knowledge to inform the public policy process. Fellows will gain firsthand knowledge and experience on how Congress works, and participate in the esteemed AAAS Science and Technology Fellows program that provides ongoing training and networking opportunities during the fellowship year and beyond. Visit the website for more details about the program or contact Leann Fox at lfox@biophysics.org or (240) 290-5606. The application deadline is December 20, 2019.

As Clock Ticks on FY2019 Senate Faces Full Slate of Appropriations By the time this edition of the BPS Bulletin arrives in your mail- boxes, we will be down to a matter of days for the Senate to take action on the 12 appropriations measures sent over by the House of Representatives before the fiscal year ends on September 30. Let’s first go back to where things were left prior to August’s five week in-district work period. White House officials and congres- sional leaders have agreed to a two-year deal to raise the budget caps by $321 billion and suspend the debt ceiling until July 2021; the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 also includes $77 billion in offsets, which will be achieved through increased fees and an extension of cuts toMedicare and other nonexempt mandatory programs. Now that a deal has been reached on budget caps, the House will need to adjust their spending proposals to be in compliance with the agreements, which for non-defense discretionary spending is approximately $15 billion less than the level used to write the spending bills. Next, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby will set his cap allocations during August with work on the first appropriations package expected during the week of September 12. It is anticipated that Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services, which includes funding for the National Institutes of Health, will be first on deck, but rumors are circulating that it could be paired up with the Department of Defense spending bill similar to last year.

Bipartisan Bill Calls for Public-Private Effort to Address Foreign Threats to Science Research On July 16, Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) introduced the Secure American Research Act of 2019 (S. 2133). The bill tasks the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy with establishing an interagency Secure Research Working Group to coordinate information shar- ing between agencies, the private sector, and academia to improve understanding and address the threats to research from foreign espionage and theft. The interagency group would also be required to set cybersecurity policy standards for institutions that receive federal grants or have cooperative agreements. NIH Issues New Fetal Tissue Restrictions The National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued strict new rules for funding of fetal tissue research on July 26. The new policy—which will go into effect on September 25—includes new requirements for grant applicants, including providing a detailed justification why alternative methods cannot be used to accomplish the same research goals and proving that a woman has consented to donate the tissue for research. The scientific research community continues to decry the new restrictions and the damaging effect they will have on bio- medical research.

September 2019

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