ESA - Public Affairs: Getting Involved

Policy > Getting Involved

Policy Resources

Connecting with Congress

Click here tip sheet for tips on writing to and meeting with members of Congress
Contact information for members of Congress: House / Senate
Schedules for members of Congress: House / Senate

Note: If you aren’t able to visit Capitol Hill, legislators frequently return to their state offices for congressional holidays and recesses, making these dates excellent opportunities for in-town meetings.

Weighing in on Federal agency regulations and actions

Visit the Federal Register to view and comment on regulations open for public comment.

Encouraging Federal support of science

Federal funding for science is distributed among a number of different agency programs on an annual basis. For a review of the budget process click here.
For the latest information on science funding in the budget, visit the AAAS R&D Budget site.

Contact your members of Congress, particularly if they have Budget or Appropriations Committee assignments (for a list of these assignments, click here for the House and here for the Senate)
Contact the Chair of committees with jurisdiction over applicable agencies. For a list of agencies, click here

Budget Overview

Federal agencies prepare budget requests, which they submit to White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
OMB uses these requests to put together the President’s budget proposal. This request is typically submitted to Congress the first Monday of February. The exception is at the start of new administrations, when the budget release date is pushed to March or April.
In Congress, authorizing committees in both the House and the Senate must approve funding for programs that fall under their jurisdiction. For example, the House Science Committee is among the committees with jurisdiction over the National Science Foundation, and is therefore tasked with approving NSF-funded programs.
The House and Senate Budget Committees each draft a budget resolution for debate on the floor, usually in April. Once passed, the resolution provides a framework for a more specific appropriations bill.
Following the budget resolution, appropriations subcommittee chairmen in each chamber allocate the funding levels among the 12 appropriations subcommittees.
After both chambers have passed their respective versions of the appropriations bill, select Senators and Representatives confer to resolve any differences between the two versions and draft an appropriations conference report, which goes back to the full House and Senate for a final vote. If passed, the bill goes to the President who either signs or vetoes it.
If a new budget is not voted into law by the end of the fiscal year (September 30) Congress must enact a continuing resolution, which maintains government spending levels specified in the previous year’s budget until a new budget is passed. This process has become commonplace, with continuing resolutions often lasting for months until federal funding for the new fiscal year is successfully completed and passed. In tandem with the trend of continuing resolutions, many appropriations bills are now packaged into a single omnibus bill, which can be passed with a single vote.

Agencies of interest

Agencies of interest to the ecological community and the congressional committees that oversee funding for them:

National Science Foundation:

Department of Energy:

Department of Interior:

Environmental Protection Agency:

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration:

Department of Education:

Take Action: ESA periodically notifies select members of opportunities to weigh in on key policy issues in their areas of interest. To stay abreast of all action alerts, consider subscribing to the ESA Public Affairs RSS feed or bimonthly Policy News.

Recent action alerts include:

Science Education (Texas members): Preserve the place of evolution in textbooks
Invasive Species: Opportunity to support the Nonnative Wildlife Invasion Prevention-Act (HR 669)
Science Funding: Weigh in on science funding in the economic stimulus package

Ecological Society of America

Policy > Getting Involved

Policy Resources

Budget Overview

Agencies of interest