The evening of June 6 Senate and House conferees met to discuss the Fiscal Year (FY) 2006 Supplemental Appropriations bill. There was an attempt to add to the bill a "deeming" resolution establishing the appropriations allocation for FY 2007, Senators on the conference committee introduced an amendment to this resolution which would add the $7.1 billion for health and education programs that were part of the Specter-Harkin Amendment.

In order for it to pass the amendment needed the support of two Republican Senators. One Voice Against Cancer (OVAC) assumed Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) would support the effort and felt Senator Mike DeWine’s (R-OH) vote was a key to the amendment’s passage but was unsure of his support.

I contacted Rebecca Dague, colon cancer survivor and C3: Colorectal Cancer Coalition advocate who lives in Ohio, to ask she call Senator DeWine to urge him to support the amendment. She called his office that night to leave a message and followed up with another call the next morning.

The next day (June 7) I recieved a message from OVAC which said the Senators on the conference committee approved the amendment and that Senators Specter and DeWine were the two Republicans who supported it. Unfortunately, House members of the confernce committee did not accept its adoption into the bill.

A short while after this Nancy Roach, C3 President, attended an OVAC meeting which discussed the vote on the amendment. She said the OVAC people were "very, very surprised" that Senator DeWine voted for the amendment. At the time of the meeting Nancy did not konw of Rebecca’s contact with Senator DeWine.

Nancy’s email went on to say:

"Your personal connection makes a big impact when it comes to specific asks. Elected officials want to be re-elected, so they want to please voters — and that means YOU."

I do not claim that Rebecca’s calls to Senator DeWine were THE reason he voted for the amendment but it could very well have been the nudge needed to get his support. Most of us do not have Sneators and Representatives in position’s as key to the passage of cancer legislation but that does not matter. What does matter is that you remember you do not know what will push elected officials to decide one way or the other so it is vital for youi to start, build and maintain a relationship with them and their staffs.

The Hill is feeling the impact of the cancer community in general and C3 in particular. Members of Congress must realize that in addition to their support we want adequate funding of cancer programs. The FY 2007 Labor/HHS appropriations process is not over thus you still have opportunity to influenc the final bill Congress sends to the President. 

Thursday, July 22 the Senate Appropriations Committee adopted subcommittee allocations in a meeting of the full committee. This part of the budget and appropriations process is where the Appropirations Committee slices the single budget pie into into allocations for each of the 12 subcommittees each of which has oversees a particular part of the federal government. The subcommittees take their particular slice of the pie and further slice it among the individual agencies within their jurisdiction.

In our case the Appropriations Committee gives a slice of the pie to the Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee. This subcommittee then divides its slice of the pie among Labor-HHS-Education and related agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institutes and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which are of interest to us.

Here is portion related to Labor-HHS-Education:

• Enacted Fiscal Year 2006 $141,200 billion
• President’s Request Fiscal Year 2007 $137,798 billion
• Allocation Fiscal Year 2007 $142,800 billion
• Proposal vs. 2006 1.1% increase

Comittee Chairman Thad Cochran (R-MS) said,

"The Senate Appropriations Committee was presented with a challenge this year in deeming ourselves a spending cap and then determining the most equitable and responsible way to divide that allocation among the 12 subcommittees. While I recognize the many needs that our committee is asked to meet, I believe we have acted prudently in seeking to restore fiscal responsibility by not increasing discretionary spending for the next fiscal year. I realize that the task before the subcommittee chairman will be difficult as they work to meet many competing interests with a scarce amount of resources, but I am confident that the Committee will present conscientious and fiscally sensible spending bills to the Senate."

I agree with Chairman Cochran that the task of the subcommittee will be difficult. Then again it is their job to make the difficult decisions. Our job as constituents interested in cancer is to keep the pressure on the subcommittee members as well as other Senators to get cancer related appropriations to the level needed to adequately fund the war against cancer.

The members of the Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee are:

• Majority Members
• Senator Arlen Specter (Chairman) (R-PA)
• Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS)
• Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH)
• Senator Larry Craig (R-ID)
• Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)
• Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK)
• Senator Mike DeWine (R-OH)
• Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL)

• Minority Members
• Senator Tom Harkin (Ranking Member) (D-IA)
• Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
• Senator Harry Reid (D-NV)
• Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI)
• Senator Patty Murray (D-WA)
• Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
• Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL)

If you are a constituent of one of these Senators you have an excellent opportunity to influence the appropriations process like no one else by telling your Senator you want a high priority given to increased funding for cancer programs. Here are the level recommended by One Voice Against Cancer (OVAC) you can mention to the Senator:

• $29.45 billion for the National Institutes of Health to sustain and build on its research progress;
• $5.03 billion for the National Cancer Institute which is the bare minimum required to protect past investment and to maintain the current pace of discovery;
• $427.5 million for eight proven cancer educaton, outreach, and prevention and screening programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;
• $200 million for the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities in order that it might fulfill its mission and achieve its goals and objectives; and
• $175 million for Nursing Workforce Programs at the Health Resources and Services Administration to help address the nationwide nursing shortage.

 Members of the full committee are:

• Majority Members
• Senator Thad Cochran, Chairman (R-MS)
• Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK)
• Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA)
• Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM)
• Senator Christopher Bond (R-MO)
• Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
• Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT)
• Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL)
• Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH)
• Senator Robert Bennett (R-UT)
• Senator Larry Craig (R-ID)
• Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)
• Senator Mike DeWine (R-OH)
• Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS)
• Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO)

• Minority Members:
• Senator Robert Byrd, Ranking Member (D-WV)
• Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
• Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
• Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA)
• Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
• Senator Harry Reid (D-NV)
• Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI)
• Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
• Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
• Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL)
• Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD)
• Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA)

If your Senator is not on the Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee but is a member of the full committee that Senator does not have direct influence on the Labor-HHS-Education bill. However, you can still ask your Senator to use his or her committee membership to influence the amount of cancer funding in the final bill.

 If neither of your Senators is a member of either the subcommittee or the full committee you still need to contact your Senators to tell them you want a high priority given to cancer funding.

Congress is abouit half way through the budget and appropriations process thus there is still time to influence the final appropriations bill by doing things like sending your members of Congress emails, scheduling an in-district meeting during the August recess and writing letters to the editor.

We’ve come a long way towards the goal of eleminating the suffereing and death caused by cancer. Those of us with colon cancer know of the recent advances made in the treatment of the disease. Now is not the time to slow the progress. We want more than the sympathy and support of Congress. We want the dollars needed to adequatly fund federal cancer programs because, like the President said in 2003, "We cannot win the war against cancer unless we fund the war against cancer."

Research in nuclear medicine has give cancer patients procedures such as PET scans and radiation therapy.  A source of funding for nuclear medicine research is the Department of Energy’s Medical Applications and Measurement Science Program.

This program provided resources to molecular/nuclear medicine professionals so that they could develop PET scanners to diagnose and monitor treatment in cancer. PET scans can offer significant advantages over CT and MRI scans in diagnosing disease and are sometimes more effective in identifying whether cancer is present or not, if it has spread, if it is responding to treatment, and if a person is cancer free after treatment.

The fiscal year (FY) 2006 Energy and Water Appropriations bill eliminated funding for nuclear medicine research at the Department of Energy (DOE). Consequently, the Federal government is providing no funding for nuclear medicine research in FY 2006, abandoning a fifty-year commitment to funding this vital research.

C3 has signed onto the Society of Nuclear Medicine letter (PDF) requesting that these critical research funds be restored. To learn more, see this fact sheet. (PDF)

Today the Senate passed a cloture motion which allows it to proceed to S. 1955 (Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act of 2005). The roll call vote was 96 yeas, two nays, and two not voting.

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This year was the fourth One Voice Against Cancer (OVAC) Lobby Day in which I participated. This was the best one and I’ve had some good ones.

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