Funding Being HURLed Away

Science Director, John R. Smith, asks scientists that have utilized HURL assets for help generating letters of support to the U.S. Congress, which has the power to re-instate funding for deep-sea research.

3/15/2012

Dear past and present HURL investigators,

As you may have already heard, NOAA has zeroed out funding for the Undersea Research Program (NURP) for FY13 beginning Oct 1, 2012, and put all the centers on life support funding (or less) for the current year.  Many other NOAA programs, mostly extramural ones, have been cut to some level, though it appears only NURP and another have had their funding zeroed out completely.  We were told rather late in the game, just at the end of last month, and we've been scrambling since to prepare ourselves to mount a come-back effort.  Here is a link to the NOAA one-pager in their 'blue book' which summarizes the cut to NURP, along with other notable budget highlights.   http://www.corporateservices.noaa.gov/nbo/fy13_budget_highlights/OAR_FY13_One_Pager.pdf

The full chapter on the Office of Oceanic and Atmoshperic Research (OAR) budget can be seen here, http://www.corporateservices.noaa.gov/nbo/fy13_budget_highlights/chapter3_OAR.pdf

The best avenue at this time is to appeal to our congressional delegation, specifically the Senate where we have the strongest support.  The Senate mark-up period to add funds to the budget lasts until March 27th.  After that, it goes to the House and then the Joint Committee, with the budget process concluding near the end of May.  If you are able and so inclined, we ask you to write a letter of support to one of our Hawai‘i senators, Dan Inouye, who happens to chair the Senate Committee on Appropriations, with a copy to the under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and administrator of NOAA Jane Lubchenco.  Their contact information is listed below.  For those of you who are federal employees, we realize that you are not allowed to do this, so we send this note for your information or passing-on only.

To provide you with current information about our program, we now have an updated website and a brand new HURL 2012 brochure that is basically a summary of the website in a few pages.  You can access the site at the same www.soest.hawaii.edu/HURL where you will see a link to the PDF of the brochure at the top under News and Announcements.  We can supply you with a hard copy, but since time is growing short I'll start by offering the electronic version.

Thanks for your great science, which is the main reason we've been here this long; and we certainly hope to be supporting your projects in the future.  As always, I and the rest of the HURL staff are happy to discuss this in more detail with each of you either in person, by telephone, or via email.

Aloha,
-John

For Senator Dan Inouye:

The Honorable Dan Inouye
United States Senate
722 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-1102

DC Phone:  202-224-3934
DC Fax:  202-224-6747
Email:  Not available

Website with additional contact info for him:
http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/cgi-bin/newmemberbio.cgi?site=congressmerge&lang=&member=HISR

His official homepage is http://inouye.senate.gov/Home/Home_1.cfm

For Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere
and NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco

Dr. Jane Lubchenco
Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere
NOAA
1401 Constitution Avenue NW Room 5128
Washington DC 20230

Phone:  202-482-3436
Fax:  Not available
Email:  jane.lubchenco@noaa.gov

Website with background info for her:
http://www.noaa.gov/lubchenco.html

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