Category: Archive Page 3 of 9

Updated: 1/22/18

GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN ENDS

Congress voted today, Jan. 22, to fund the government through Feb. 8 with a promise from Senate Republicans to debate and vote on an immigration bill before then.

It would also delay Obamacare’s medical device and Cadillac taxes for two years and its health insurance tax for one year. The Cadillac tax on costly workplace health plans, which was previously delayed by Congress, would now go into effect in 2022. The medical device tax had previously been suspended before it took effect again this month.

CHIP

Included in the stopgap funding package was six years of funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Plan, CHIP, which provides roughly 9 million minors in the U.S. with health care coverage even if their parents lack insurance of their own. 

Updated: 1/20/18

Disagreement between House and Senate spending plans as well as inter- and intra-party differences has fueled speculation of a government shutdown starting midnight tonight, Jan. 20. Duke Government Relations is closely monitoring the negotiations and sourcing contingency plans from various federal agencies. Below is a list of current shutdown contingency plans as they are updated from previous shutdowns and released by each agency. Some information may only be known after a shutdown has begun.

The full list of government agencies is here:
Government Agency Shutdown Plans
Selected agency plans can be found here:
The Department of Defense
Department of Energy (DOE has not issued a memo but is currently directing traffic to this order)
Department of Homeland Security
National Science Foundation
Health and Human Services 
National Endowment for the Humanities
Department of Education
—–
Update: 1/20/18

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Possible Lapse of Government Funding

The U.S. government faces a possible lapse of funding Friday at midnight (Jan. 19).

• If there is a lapse of government funding at midnight Friday, and no new funding deal is reached during the weekend, NASA would continue operating using available funds until Monday. If there’s still no funding deal then, we would do an orderly closeout of activities.

• International Space Station activities and satellite missions in operation will continue as to protect the crew, spacecraft, and data being collected. In addition, other activities involving protection of life and property will continue. All other agency activities not determined to be legally excepted will stop.

• If there is a lapse of government funding, we’ll make an assessment of all the effects on the agency after funding resumes.

National Science Foundation

When you visit www.nsf.gov, the message below will appear on the website.

Due to the lapse in government funding, National Science Foundation websites and business applications, including NSF.gov, FastLane, and Research.gov will be unavailable until further notice. We sincerely regret this inconvenience.

Updates regarding government operating status and resumption of normal O&M can be found at www.opm.gov.

In cases of imminent threat to life or property, please call the Office of the Inspector General at 1-800-428-2189.

The following addresses the various assistance and contract-related policy and systems issues that may arise during the lapse in appropriations of the Federal Government.  NSF is providing this information as a service to our proposer and awardee communities in the hopes that it will address most of the questions you may have during this time period. 

Please be aware that, except as noted below, NSF will not be available to respond to emails or phone calls during the lapse in appropriations, but will respond to your inquiries as soon as practicable after normal operations have been resumed.  NSF is committed to minimizing the negative impacts this disruption may have on the science and engineering enterprise and, as necessary, will issue follow-on guidance after the lapse in appropriations ends.

Preaward Activities for Assistance Awards (Grants and Cooperative Agreements 

Proposal Preparation & Submission

•  No new funding opportunities (Dear Colleague Letters, program descriptions, announcements or solicitations) will be issued.
•  FastLane proposal preparation and submission will be unavailable.
• Grants.gov may be up and running, however, since FastLane will not be operating, proposal downloads from Grants.gov will not take place.  Therefore, proposals will not be checked for compliance with NSF proposal preparation requirements or processed until normal operations are allowed to resume.

Impact on Existing Deadlines

• Once normal operations resume, NSF will issue guidance regarding any funding opportunities that have a deadline or target date that occurs during the lapse in appropriations. Such information will be disseminated via the NSF website, a FastLane Advisory and other electronic methods.  

Proposal Review Process

•  All panels scheduled to occur during the lapse in appropriations will be cancelled and will likely be rescheduled to a later date.
• Reviews will not be able to be submitted via FastLane.

Proposal Processing Time

• The Foundation may not be able to meet our customer service standard of informing proposers whether their proposals have been declined or recommended for funding within six months of the deadline or target date, or receipt date, whichever is later. 

Issuance of New Grants and Cooperative Agreements

•  No new grants or cooperative agreements will be awarded.

Issuance of Continuing Grant Increments (CGIs)

• No new CGIs (whether electronically released upon Program Officer acceptance of the Annual Project Report or approved by a Grants and Agreements Officer) will be awarded.

Post-Award Administration for Grants and Cooperative Agreements

Performance of Work

• Awardees may continue performance under their NSF awards during the lapse in appropriations, to the extent funds are available, and the period of performance of the grant or cooperative agreement has not expired.  Any expenses must be allowable and in accordance with the Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (2 CFR § 200).  During the lapse in appropriations, NSF cannot authorize costs exceeding available award amounts or obligate additional funds to cover such costs 

Payments

•  No payments will be made during the lapse in appropriations.

Project Reporting

• Principal Investigators (PIs) will be unable to submit annual and final project reports or project outcomes reports via Research.gov.  For continuing grants, awardees also should be aware that since annual project reports will not be able to be submitted and Program Officers will not be available to approve them, no new CGIs will be awarded (see above).  Awardees should submit their reports as soon as possible after NSF systems are available.

No-Cost Extensions

• No-cost extensions (including grantee-approved and NSF-approved) will not be able to be submitted or processed.
• Awardees, therefore, are cautioned that Federal funds cannot be obligated for expenses that occur beyond the award end date. 

Award Transfer Requests will not be able to be submitted or processed. 

Supplemental Funding Requests will not be able to be submitted or processed. 

Other Post Award Notifications & Requests will not be able to be submitted or processed.

Cooperative Agreements in Support of Large Facilities

• Awardees may continue to perform under Cooperative Support Agreements for work where sufficient funds are available, and performance does not require Government support which would be funded by a lapsed appropriation, including quality assurance oversight or other actions required of NSF staff.
• Since the cooperative nature of these agreements anticipates the need for Government involvement, NSF has, or will have, put work plans in place with the large facility cooperative agreement awardees outlining the extent and time duration that operations will continue in the absence of NSF oversight and direction.
• For agreements that include major research equipment and facilities construction, unless the work is considered to be essential to the operations of the Foundation, and NSF personnel have been retained to provide oversight of construction activities, work cannot proceed for an extended period, even if funds are available, based on the foreseen need for NSF oversight of construction activities.

Payments

• No payments will be made during the lapse in appropriations.  

Contracts

•  NSF will notify contractors whether they will be expected to continue work in support of an excepted activity, or will issue an order to suspend or stop work, or take other appropriate action during the lapse in appropriations.
•  New contracts will not be issued during a lapse in appropriations, except those that NSF has identified as supporting excepted activities, and then only to the extent and amount necessary to meet those requirements.
• Contract personnel may be assigned by NSF to work on excepted activities, provided all requirements governing excepted activities are met.  Contractors may perform these excepted services, but only to the minimal extent necessary to address emergency situations, such that the suspension of the function would imminently threaten the safety of human life or the protection of property. 
•  Contractors may be authorized by NSF to continue to perform under other contracts for work where sufficient funding was obligated prior to the lapse in appropriations, provided performance does not require the use of closed NSF facilities, is not in support of closed NSF facilities, or where the contractor’s work does not require Government oversight or support which would be funded by a lapsed appropriation (such Government oversight or support includes, but is not limited to quality assurance oversight, technical direction, review of deliverables, or similar actions requiring NSF staff).
• NSF may notify certain cost reimbursement and Time and Materials contractors of work plans outlining the extent and time duration that operations can continue in the absence of NSF oversight and direction. 

Payments

• No payments will be made during the lapse in appropriations.  An extremely limited exception may be made by NSF in circumstances where the payment is made in support of excepted activities, and failure to make the payment itself would result in an imminent threat to life or property.

Excepted Personnel

The Division of Acquisition and Cooperative Support has assigned Contracting Officers to support contract-related excepted activities during the lapse in appropriations.

---

General Notes:

If you have meetings scheduled with federal officials in the coming days and weeks, please call ahead to determine the operational status of the office.

OGR will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates to the Duke community as further information becomes available.

VP of Public Affairs and Government Relations Michael Schoenfeld sent a note to the university administration this afternoon, Jan. 19. Read it here:

Dear Colleagues,
The Duke Office of Government Relations is closely monitoring the budget negotiations in Washington to determine the implications of a possible federal government shutdown on Duke and its activities.  If such a shutdown takes place, it will begin midnight, January 20, 2018.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) instructs all federal agencies and congressional offices to prepare and periodically update contingency plans for internal use. OMB has released updated guidance to agencies on planning for operations in absence of appropriations, which you can find here:  https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/m-18-05-Final.pdf  The existing “OMB Agency Contingency Plans”, required by law to be updated every two years, are available at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/agency-contingency-plans/.

Our Government Relations team in Durham and Washington, DC, will continue to watch for further developments and communications from the federal agencies, but it is possible that official guidance will not become available until after the shutdown takes place. As information is received, we will share it with members of the Duke community through Duke Today. In the meantime, if you have meetings or events planned with federal officials during the next few weeks or have time-sensitive business (i.e. deadlines), it is recommended that contingency plans be considered before the close of business on Friday, January 19, 2018.

With regard to federal funded sponsored research, a communication has been sent to all grant and business managers from University Finance.

Here are the most critical elements:
–          Federal systems may not be available and/or not fully supported (e.g. GRANTS.GOV)
–          New awards will likely be held
–          Some federal contracts will be directly impacted and the Contracting Officer may direct you to stop all work; please be on the lookout for communication from your CO and forward to the applicable pre-award office and Nate Martinez-Wayman in the Office of Sponsored Programs.

Following are two publications from OMB and the Congressional Research Service (CRS) regarding federal government shutdowns for your reference.

Shutdown of the Federal Government: Causes, Processes, and Effects (CRS)
Section 124 – Agency Operations in the Absence of Appropriations (OMB)

This information has also been conveyed to department chairs and program directors.  If you have further questions, I encourage you to contact Jim Luther or Melissa Vetterkind.

Mike

The best laid schemes of mice and men never met the wrath of the U.S. Congress. With 2018 in full legislative swing, this year promises tight deadlines, fiscal cliffs and legislative brinksmanship. In election years, lawmakers typically avoid writing major legislation, but with the backlog of issues from 2017, the 2018 midterms look to be a spattering of high-profile legislation and campaigning.

In their rush to leave for the holidays, lawmakers passed a short-term spending bill that expires Jan. 19. Trump and GOP leaders will need Democratic support to fund the government and avoid a similar continuing resolution in a month’s time.

2019 budget and appropriations look equally dismal. The president’s FY19 budget proposal is expected in Feb. and will likely resemble last year’s proposal that cut agency funding across the board and increased military spending. One of the main disagreements is whether a DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) fix will be included in the spending package.

Without knowing how much to spend this year, lawmakers cannot finish work on their trillion-dollar omnibus bill to fund the federal government for 2018. Congress has until March to assemble a solution to President Trump’s decision to end the DACA program. Trump ended the program in Sept. 2017 but has also said Congress should write a legislative fix to the program.

There is the semblance of bipartisan support in Congress and in the public to grant the DREAMers legal status and even a path to citizenship, but parties in Congress disagree on whether to include such a fix in the spending bill.

The most recent ruling by a District Court Judge in San Francisco, Jan. 9, will allow the continuation of DACA (excepting new applications) until legal challenges brought in multiple courts are resolved. The administration is expected to appeal the ruling.

Barring action from Congress to raise the nation’s debt limit, the US Treasury will run out of money to pay its bills sometime in spring. Treasury lost its authority to borrow money on Dec. 9 and has been employing “extraordinary measures” – a type of accounting gimmick – since then. Treasury has until late March or early April to borrow more money, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

For the first time since 2008, Congress is working to rewrite the massive bill authorizing higher education in America – the Higher Education Act (HEA). The House version of the bill would have serious implications for how students pay for college and how colleges are evaluated. The bill would rescind regulations on for-profit colleges and steer federal money to apprenticeship and career training programs.

Representative Virginia Foxx, the North Carolina Republican who chairs the House education committee, looks to simplify the federal student aid program (by ending loan repayment benefits), to eliminate the gainful-employment rule and other regulations long opposed by for-profits and to link federal aid eligibility to students’ ability to repay loans.

The bill also eliminates an Obama administration rule designed to thin career education programs that graduate students with debt they can’t repay. Another provision in this HEA adds graduation benchmarks for minority-serving institutions seeking dedicated federal grant funding with colleges across the board liable for student progress on loan repayment.

The full ramifications of the 542-page bill passed by the House committee before holiday break are still unknown. The bill would also affect sexual harassment reporting and disciplinary procedures, free speech on campus and hazing policies. The speed with which the House version went through committee markups and approval left many questions unanswered. The Senate has not unveiled a draft bill of HEA reauthorization and there are many differences left to negotiate as well as a full House vote on the bill.

Duke has a vested interest in the outcome, particularly how the House version would negatively affect graduate education and borrowing. The bill eliminates the in-school subsidy on student loans, reduces the amount parents and graduate and professional students can borrow, devises a complex set of new requirements around institutional risk-sharing and changes important loan forgiveness options for students. Each of these provisions is vitally important to our students and deserves a more thorough discussion and debate than they are currently slated to receive.

On Dec. 22, 2017, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled (in Hawaii v. Trump) that President Trump’s most recent Executive Order travel ban exceeded the president’s power under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The INA gives the president power to bar the entry of foreign nationals “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” Employing a “common sense” reading of the INA, the Ninth Circuit rejected a reading of statutory provisions in isolation.

Instead, the Ninth Circuit argued that a court should construe that provision in light of the INA’s language, legislative history and overall scheme. Other key elements of the INA include reliance on consular officers’ knowledge of country conditions, the abolition of national origin quotas in 1965, and Congress’s enactment in that year of a provision barring national origin discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas.

However, there is still no final verdict on the legality of President Trump’s most recent travel ban. The Supreme Court allowed this third ban to take effect back in early December. The Ninth Circuit released its decision declaring the third travel ban illegal but have put their decision on hold until the Supreme Court can review it this year.

Pushing contentious items up to a higher authority or to a later date is par for the course in the capital this season. Congress is famous for deadline-hopping and serial procrastination, but this spring 2018 will prove especially trying as the federal government, from the court system to congressional appropriators, will rush to write actionable laws to keep the government both funded and functioning.

In an attempt to press the timeliness of DACA and immigration reform, Duke DACA recipients and allies challenged key congressmen on Capitol Hill, Nov. 30 and Dec.1.

Roughly a dozen students travelled up to D.C. right before finals for two days of meetings with legislators and staff to urge Congress to consider a DACA fix in their end-of-year work.

“Our main priority was to share our story” said Axel Herrera Ramos, speaking for the group Define American. “To show and express that what was decided about DACA and the way Congress is handling immigration right now has truly harmful implications on our lives.”

Define American is a non-profit organization dedicated to rewriting the debate about immigration reform and American identity. According to the group’s website, they use “the power of story to transcend politics and shift the conversation about immigrants, identity, and citizenship in a changing America.”

The students met with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) as well as staff from Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) and Sen. Richard Burr’s (R-NC) offices. They met with Rep. David Price (D-NC) last week in North Carolina.

“Making our request in person was the most powerful thing we could do” said Ramos “We cannot vote, and we cannot make demands that a US citizen can, but we can certainly show that we exist, that we have strived to succeed in this country and contribute as much as we can. Our main ask was that congress act on what is now in their hands, to pass a bill that does not place restrictive measures on us in the future or exclude DREAMERS who did not have DACA at the time but were eligible, and that does not jeopardize the lives of our families.”

Although many of their meetings were with DACA and Dreamer “allies” on the Hill, several members of Congress were less vocal in about DACA but offered unsuspected color to the conversation on immigration reform.

When given the opportunity as they had directly with Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Duke’s Define American group did not shy away from discussing immigration reform writ large.

“Although we focused a lot on the humanity of immigration reform and how the lack of reform has affected our families and lives” said Ramos. “We also tried to discuss in our meetings how this is a reflection of an overall greater problem in the immigration system. We discussed how sometimes a single sheet of paper was the difference between being documented or not in this country and how it often came down to getting lucky in the geographic lottery.”

Duke has an institutional interest in protecting DACA students as well as in clear and responsible immigration reform. On Sept. 6, 2017 President Price issued a statement declaring “In light of the decision to end DACA, Duke University restates its firm commitment to protecting the right of all students to learn and discover here, regardless of their background or immigration status.”

Among Duke’s immigration concerns, DACA and DACA student well-being have taken precedence. According to Chris Simmons, Associate Vice President of Government Relations “even though DACA technically has several more months before it is annulled, fighting for the stability of our students’ lives is a top priority for the university. We can’t let the anxiety around immigration reform cloud our students’ ability to just be students and focus on their futures.”

Despite the resources and guidance Duke offers, the incertitude around immigration reform not only clouds legislative action, but also the mental well-being of DACA recipients.

True to form, Duke’s DACA students focused on their futures and the future security of their families. Not ones to let legislative hurdles and paperwork stymy their ambition, Duke’s DACA recipients looked forward at the next steps in their lives.

“We shared with them our fears about the uncertainty of our post-undergraduate plans” said Ramos speaking for the group. “We all have dreams for our future, but without a permanent solution, our dreams that we have worked endlessly for may stay as dreams.”

Show is always better than tell. Rarely is that adage truer than when advocating on the university’s behalf. The Duke Office of Government Relations spends much of its time engaging policymakers in Washington, D.C. However, the greatest impact the university makes, and therefore the greatest asset worth sharing, is right in Duke’s own backyard.

Such is the idea behind State and District Directors’ Day. Hosted biennially by the Duke University Office of Government Relations (OGR) and Duke University Health and State Government Relations (DGR) since 2005, the day-long event exposes congressional staffers from both parties and both chambers of the U.S. Congress to the breadth of Duke’s impact and engagement across North Carolina. Half the day is spent on the university side and the other half with the Duke Health and Duke Medicine side.

Underlining the importance of the day is the sheer size and scope of Duke’s relationship with North Carolina residents. As the second largest private employer in the state, with over 38,000 employees, Duke is woven into the fabric of not just the higher education community or Durham, but the entire state. Through Duke’s private health insurance plan 70,000 North Carolinians receive their medical care coverage.

As President Vincent Price told Congressional staff in attendance, “Duke can be a powerful agent in developing the full potential of the state of North Carolina.”

President Price went on to discuss the successes and continued potential for collaboration between Duke and state and local entities across North Carolina arguing, “we’ve got scale and partnerships in the region to work through the most serious problems facing us.” Expressing optimism for what is to come, he added that, “we’ve only really begun to leverage these partnerships.”

This blog is the launch of a new, ongoing series from the Duke Office of Government Relations aimed at highlighting the important and diverse array of work Duke does across the state of North Carolina. Subsequent posts will dig deeper into issues discussed at the 2017 District Directors’ Day, including the Duke Superfund Research Center and College Advising Corps. Some stories will trace federal funding down to the local level and others will showcase the impact Duke is having on communities across the state.

If you work with a program at Duke that you would like to highlight, please reach out to us at dukegovernmentrelations@duke.edu.

In two days of meetings this week in Washington, D.C., Dean of the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences Valerie Ashby advocated for the university’s federal priorities, including student aid, research funding and immigration, with alumni, journalists, Members of Congress and their staff.

Ashby’s goal for the Sept. 26-27 meetings on Capitol Hill was to “share context around some of Duke’s  priorities, particularly on issues of research investments from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other research agencies.”

When asked about the importance of NSF funding to Duke’s research portfolio, Ashby said “NSF is especially important to the university because it supports basic research and the development of the people who create new knowledge.”

Trinity College Dean Valerie Ashby meets with Representative Nita Lowey (D-NY 17th). Photo by Colin Colter.

“Part of the benefit of NSF funding is that the agency requires researchers to ensure their work has a broad impact,” said Ashby, a noted chemistry researcher. “For example, NSF proposals allow us to support undergraduate research. This is a core value at Duke and more than half of our undergraduate students conduct research with a faculty mentor. NSF also funds graduate student research and training programs. So in addition to funding major research projects led by faculty, NSF allows us to train the next generation of scientific leaders and scholars.

“NSF also prioritizes diversity, and this enables us to address issues of access. We can then ensure that the broadest base of students possible have the opportunity to participate in Duke research and educational programs. This helps us to recruit and retain the best and brightest students in STEM fields.”

Duke University was awarded roughly $38 million from the NSF in FY16. Among other initiatives, the NSF helps sponsor or fund the Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology and the Duke Lemur Center.

Dean Valerie Ashby talked about research issues and immigration with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV).

According to the National Science Foundation, Duke ranks 7^th nationally among all U.S. colleges and universities in total research and development expenditures (in FY2015, the most recent year for which there is comprehensive data).

“I have had NSF funding my entire career,” said the Dean. “NSF literally launched my career in chemistry by providing support and training resources when I was a graduate student, and funding my research as a junior faculty member – which ultimately enabled me to earn tenure. NSF’s support was an endorsement of the value of the work I was doing.”

In discussions on immigration, Ashby conveyed the importance of protecting and promoting policies that allow Duke to attract and retain the best and brightest. Duke and many institutions of higher education rely on a variety of student and work visas to maintain a scholarly community that is diverse, productive and creative.

“We are a global university,” Ashby said. “More than just students are impacted by immigration policies. Faculty and visiting scholars are also impacted. We are counting on the best talent participating in our research and teaching enterprise—and immigration affects our ability to recruit, retain and collaborate.”

Ashby left lawmakers with a straightforward message: “excellence and innovation are tied to diversifying intellectual content, faculty and students.”

When it comes to legislative action, there is no time like the deadline. As Congress returns this week, they face a series of decisions that shape the rest of the fiscal and legislative year. Congress has fewer than three weeks of working days in September to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a default on America’s bills. As Hurricane Harvey recovery continues, they also need to address fundamental questions about the government’s role in caring for its most vulnerable citizens. This new set of deadlines comes bundled with the unfinished appropriations work left over from the dog days of summer, the results of which will affect Duke’s future funding priorities.

The House intends to vote on an eight-bill spending package which combines the remaining appropriations bills that did not receive a vote before recess. Media reports indicate Congress may combine emergency aid for Harvey victims with stopgap government funding and the debt-limit increase upon return. Since such a funding package is likely to include much-needed emergency aid, it is unclear if President Trump’s previous threat to veto a funding package that does not include border wall funds will stand.

Meanwhile, Senate appropriators will resume work on Wednesday, September 6, including Labor-HHS-Ed and State-Foreign Operations subcommittee markups. The full appropriations committee will address both bills the following day.

The Senate Appropriations Committee still has not taken up defense spending. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) began a fast-track process to bring a House-passed package of national security spending bills to the floor, but senators did not vote on the legislation before adjourning for recess. That measure is unlikely to garner enough Democratic support to overcome a likely filibuster.

The pending reduction to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster relief account is part of a massive spending bill the House considers this week when lawmakers return from their August recess. The $876 million cut included in the 1,305-page measure’s homeland security section pays for roughly half the cost of Trump’s down payment on the U.S.-Mexico border wall that the president repeatedly promised Mexico would finance.

GOP leaders are unlikely to cut disaster aid next week as floodwaters still cover Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, and as tens of thousands of Texans seek refuge in shelters. There is only $2.3 billion remaining in the federal disaster coffer.

In that same vein, a federal flood insurance program is the only option for millions of homeowners and expires at the end of next month. The National Flood Insurance Program expires Sept. 30 and must be reauthorized to continue operating past then.

Although not directly tied to Duke initiatives or funding priorities, flood insurance and disaster relief are likely to become bargaining chips in upcoming funding battles as Congress tries to bundle together debt limit increases, disaster funding, and appropriations.

President Trump faces many tough choices on the future of medical treatment in America. The president has threatened to pull funding for a key Obamacare subsidy, but his advisers so far have talked him out of a move that could send the individual insurance markets into a tailspin.

He faces two key deadlines in the next few weeks: whether to keep paying insurers the subsidy and whether to defend the payments in federal court. Meanwhile, insurers in most states filed final 2018 rates on August 21 amid uncertainty about the future of Obamacare subsidies and whether Republican lawmakers would drop their years-long salvo against the health care law and focus on repairing it. As important as the decision to fund insurance programs may be, funding the government will prove more so.

While the House and Senate were on recess for the past month, leaders worked on a plan to avert a government shutdown and a debt default before the fiscal year ends. The September 30 deadline is still weeks away, but Republicans were eager to settle on a strategy before lawmakers return today, September 5, with just 12 workdays before that deadline.

Even if they beat the finish line and prevent a funding lapse, leaders are already resigned to the idea of another short-term extension of current funding levels to buy more time (i.e. a continuing resolution). Without a full-year defense spending bill and a bipartisan agreement to lift defense budget caps, a continuing resolution will be needed to avert a government shutdown. If past is prologue, it could be well into 2018 before federal agencies receive updated funding.

Not all fiscal deadlines are in September. Some are self-imposed.
At the urging of his Attorney General Jeff Sessions, President Trump has decided to end the Obama-era program DACA (“Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals”) that grants work permits to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children. From current media reports and AG Sessions’ press conference, Congress will have 6 months to act on immigration reform before the program is phased out. The need to write immigration legislation adds to Congress’s full docket of upcoming milestones and will compound negotiations this fall.

The crumbs of August leave Congress with major legislative decisions. The government must be funded. The debt ceiling most likely will be raised. Immigration reform is on a tight, self-imposed timeline, and now flood insurance will rule Congress’s already full calendar. The chief driver of inaction is not just different political ideologies, but rather the gap between expectations and reality in a loaded calendar year.

Duke’s Science&Society program tries to pluralize the world of science. In order to magnify the social benefit of scientific progress, Science&Society endeavors to make it more accessible, just, and integrated into society.  But uses of the word ‘science’ are vast, and the use of ‘science’ in the policy world is even more nebulous. With working definitions of ‘science’ and the scientific process are so easily misconstrued in national policymaking, Duke’s Science&Society program has collaborated with DukeEngage to train the next generation of health leaders to engage the policy machine and vice versa.

Their research encompasses genome ethics, health and medicine, law and policy, neuroscience and society, engineering and technology, and the social and humanistic studies of science. The program and its corollaries understand that health issues are innately complex and require multiple lenses to be both robust and long-lasting.

For example, Science& Society studies how issues of money, politics, race, sex, and culture affect sports entertainment and its role in society. They study the relationship between how food, fat, and urban life contribute to rising rates of obesity and diabetes in India. Traditional studies of public health as a purely hard-science issue paints half the picture. Science&Society renegotiates the boundaries between scientific study and anthropological study in order to truly understand the problems afflicting local communities.

Reflecting the greater mission of Science&Society, this summer’s DukeEngage students are not simply fulfilling internships, they are combining fields and interests. “Academically, I have been trying to synthesize my major—Economics—with my career aspiration of working in the medical field, so that I can hopefully be a more effective and thoughtful physician… I became involved in this program to take on thinking about this topic of science policy and, in the future, to hopefully apply insights from this program to be able to help others without making the mistakes that some scientists and policymakers do” said Economics major William Song (T’19).

The DukeEngage program aims to bridge the gap between scientific research and the policy establishment. But as anyone remotely involved in politics knows, it often feels as if the political process itself is the hurdle. Chief among the causes is a lack of trained scientists holding office in the three branches of government, according to Song.

This dearth leads to simple translation errors and difficulties navigating uncommon and innovative research: “For scientists, communicating scientific findings accurately and in an interesting way to nonscientists seems to be a challenge. For policymakers, understanding science and being aware of the dangers of misinterpreting data seems to be a challenge. A broader understanding of science policy would hopefully push scientists to consider policy questions and policymakers to be able to effectively use scientific evidence” said Song.

However, the students are not spending their entire summers hammering away at memos and in policy meetings; they are navigating how science is (or isn’t) used in specific fields. According to the Science&Society DukeEngage Program Director Thomas Williams J.D., “we have been able to secure a private visit to the Supreme Court for a discussion of science policy, and we spent a day in Annapolis, Maryland meeting with state government policy makers. In both cases, we were able to engage in meaningful discussions about the process and substance of science policy. Another highlight was a visit to the NPR studios, where the group had the opportunity to meet with the science journalist Joe Palca, to discuss his work and the relationship between media, science and policy.”

A lawyer by training, Williams developed an interest in bioethics in law school, spending his spare time reading about the field and catching up on current events. He chose his law school, the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, because it offered a joint J.D./Masters in Bioethics program. While pursuing a post-doctoral fellowship at Duke Law, he helped launch the SciPol website, an online resource that tracks upcoming science policy issues. When he heard the Science&Society program was taking over the DC Duke Engage program Williams “jumped at the opportunity to engage with undergraduate students and return home to my old stomping grounds in the DC metro area.”

Any DukeEngage program demands students dive into a world outside their ken. But DukeEngage’s Science&Society summer in Washington, D.C. drops students into the jungle of American policymaking and all the animals who come with it. During their two months in D.C., students serve at government agencies, NGOs, non-profits and lobbying organizations where they assist with the analysis of policy questions, formulate policy options, and make choices at a national level regarding science policy.

As with many Duke summer programs, students hopefully draw from what they have learned in the classroom and apply it to real-world situations. This program is as much about science and society as it is about science in the service of society. If the goal of Science&Society is to maximize the social benefit of scientific progress by making it more accessible, just, and integrated with communities, then this year’s DukeEngage students have already prevailed simply by being a part of the greater policy conversation.

Politics is the allocation of resources by other means. And scarcely is that more true than in the writing of a federal budget. As President Trump unveiled his own proposal for FY18, every other interested party will begin to do the same. The Presidential budget is simply the first step in an arduous exercise in government haggling.

The president’s budget is essentially his wish list to push lawmakers in a direction he sees fit, but as anyone can tell you, directing Congressmen is like herding cats. Everyone has a different constituency with different needs and different strengths.

As the Office of Government Relations will readily remind the Duke community, budgets are a process, not an order. This process, as with so much of our current political ecosystem, will likely be dominated by hot rhetoric and divisive actions. The president’s budget has already met strong opposition from lawmakers and interest groups alike. Research funding has strong bipartisan support in both houses of Congress.

ederal research funding touches many lives across the country and Duke finds itself allied not simply with universities of similar calibre but also with the tech industry, energy and environmental groups, health care entities, NGOs and a myriad of private advocacy groups.
The following analysis pays attention to programs with strong bearing on Duke’s research enterprise.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget would be cut by 21 percent from 2017 spending levels, down to $26 billion. The National Cancer Institute, which falls under the NIH umbrella, would see a budget cut of 19 percent as would almost all NIH institutes. This is identical to the proposed ‘skinny’ budget. It should be noted that this proposed cut came weeks after Congress gave the biomedical research agency a $2 billion boost in its 2017 spending bill.

The presidential proposal wraps the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality into NIH while maintaining $272 million in discretionary funding for the agency’s work. It also proposes restructuring the way the agency processes grants to reduce overhead costs. It includes a $500 million health block grant for states to respond to public health threats. Advocates question whether the money will be redirected from other programs.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) budget would take a 17 percent cut, which shakes out to a $6.3 billion decrease in funding. Spending on HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections, and tuberculosis prevention would be reduced by 17 percent. The CDC’s global health program — which is responsible for helping fight disease outbreaks abroad — would take an 18 percent cut.

Meanwhile, public health groups remain concerned about the House’s proposal to gut the Prevention and Public Health Fund as part of the Republican Obamacare repeal bill. The fund accounts for roughly 12 percent of the CDC’s budget and includes money for immunization programs, preventive health services and disease detection programs, among other things. Advocates are working with Senate lawmakers to spare the prevention fund in their version of the repeal bill.

In all, the Trump proposal cuts about 32 percent from U.S. diplomacy and aid budgets, or nearly $19 billion. The budget proposal envisions cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program, a cornerstone of U.S. global health assistance, which supports HIV/AIDS treatment, testing and counseling for millions of people worldwide. Under Trump’s budget, PEPFAR funding would be $5 billion per year compared to about $6 billion annually now.

Trump’s proposed NIH and CDC cuts are a nonstarter on Capitol Hill. Rep. Tom Cole, who chairs the House appropriations panel overseeing health agencies, called the expected cuts to NIH “penny wise and pound foolish.”

The university community finally saw the official proposal related to a cap on facilities and administrative (F&A) costs previewed by HHS Secretary Tom Price in March. The budget document outlines an F&A rate for NIH grants capped at 10 percent of total research. This issue was raised again at an NIH budget hearing before the House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee.

In response to questions from subcommittee members, Francis Collins, the Director of the NIH, said that cuts to F&A would be viewed by the research community as cuts to essential research costs. He also stated that university leaders continue to tell him that they are already subsidizing the research they perform for the NIH, in part because of the costs associated with complying with increasing federal regulations.
At NSF, basic science would fall by $620 million, or 13%, to $4.3 billion. NSF is a major funder of basic research outside of biomedical science. The proposed budget would reverse the basic research agency’s growth back to fiscal year 2007 levels. The Trump plan adds more uncertainty for the agency, which is already struggling to cope with the federal hiring freeze the president instituted in January 2017. The NSF is scheduled to move its headquarters later this year, and an internal survey suggests that 17% of its 2,000 staff plan to leave within the next two years because of this change.

The administration is also seeking a vast simplification of student loan programs – something Republicans have pushed for several years. And there’s wide agreement on both sides of the aisle the federal government’s array of federal repayment programs for student borrowers have become unwieldy and needs to be overhauled.

The political reality is that any changes to loan programs will be tough to pull off — even with the best of intentions. Many of the government’s repayment options, which cap loan payments based on a borrower’s income and family size, are popular not just with low-income Americans, but also with middle- and high-income families.

Trump’s budget would eliminate subsidized student loans, producing nearly $39 billion in savings over the next decade, and a loan forgiveness program for public servants, which would free up more than $27 billion over the next decade. The budget continues funding for year-round Pell grants, which Congress restored earlier this year by reallocating $3.1 billion in mandatory spending on the program over the next decade.

Under Trump’s budget proposal, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would be reduced by more than 30%, larger than in earlier reports. The Department of Energy would receive about a 6% funding cut. That includes a number of Obama-era energy and environmental initiatives, including eliminating the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and making a 17 percent reduction to the DOE’s basic research portfolio at the Office of Science.

The budget plan, which calls for the elimination of four independent cultural agencies — the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting —would also radically reshape the nation’s cultural infrastructure. Although the budgets of the four organizations slated for elimination are negligible as a percentage of the larger federal budget, they play a vital role in a cultural economy built on a system of federal stimulus.

The word ‘unprecedented’ gets thrown around a lot these days. The president himself has employed the term once or twice. But the budget cuts America’s research institutions face now are not that new. They have a history that dates back to the Apollo mission and the original Reagan budget proposals. President Reagan came into office shockingly bullish on America’s research enterprises. Although Trump’s cuts are the steepest proposed in decades, they are close to Reagan’s initial proposals. Reagan’s budgets met stiff opposition and federal science R&D funding actually increased throughout his tenure.

Although the Obama Administration was largely considered ‘good’ on science and research funding, the percent of R&D (overall and non-defense discretionary) of the total budget was actually higher under George W. Bush. Research funding and higher education enjoy a significant amount of bipartisan support.

Innovation is the lifeblood of American strength and technological charisma. Congress has demonstrated a strong understanding of this reality as have our partners in industry. The current research slash-and-burn attitude is nothing new. The value of a well-oiled university research system is not lost on many of the appropriators key to the budget-writing process. And it is to their quiet remarks and not to hot rhetoric to which we should pay attention to truly understand what an FY18 budget is likely to be. Sometimes, the only thing more valuable than actual capital is political capital; and these days, neither is in great supply.

Plum Books and Outlooks: Finding Your Feet in a New Government

 President Trump recently passed his 50^th day in office. Though legally of no consequence, the first three months of a President’s tenure is often the only chance he has to set the legislative agenda and therefore the tone of Washington in the coming years. This year, the Trump Administration launched a myriad of executive actions and legislative topics. As part of our series tracking the new Administration, we decided the first fifty days was a good time to take a break from ceaseless news briefings and to take a slightly more atmospheric view of the pace of events.

So much of our democratic system is guided by norm, not by law. In few places is that more true than it is in the issuing of Executive Orders. Since taking office January 20, President Trump has signed 34 Executive Orders. This number is not far off from historic precedent. Between Inauguration Day and Jan. 31, Trump signed seven Executive Orders and 11 memos; in the same timeframe, Obama signed nine orders and 10 memos.

Each new president seeks to alter the course and tone of the government upon taking office. And Executive Orders are one of the chief ways for the president to exert authority over the interpretation of an action, although he has no power to make law, nor to fund it. Executive Orders are most often symbolic attempts to “guide” agencies’ and departments’ policy making. It is this uncertain legal ground upon which Trump’s travel ban against majority-Muslim countries has taken on water.

The revised travel ban, which went into effect Thursday, March 16, has already faced hold-ups in court. At least five states are taking legal action to block parts of Trump’s newest Executive Order. “We’re asserting that the president cannot unilaterally declare himself free of the court’s restraining order and injunction,” Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson told reporters at a news conference on March 9. “This is not a new lawsuit. … It’s our view that that temporary restraining order that we’ve already obtained remains in effect. And the burden is on the federal government to explain why it does not.” The argument in the Washington State court is not so much about the legality of the ruling as they are about the previous injunction against it that was sustained.

However, the argument proffered in the Hawaii court is that the Executive Order is unconstitutional. This argument is not limited to the text of the order but is reinforced by the statements made by President Trump on Twitter during the campaign when he called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” That court case also pulls from similar statements made by chief authors of the Executive Order Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller. With the Trump White House as with all executive branch staffs, who you surround yourself with matters.

People are policy. With whom Trump chooses to surround himself greatly affects what his administration will accomplish. He has sent nominations to the Senate at a faster pace than most recent presidents, but has struggled to get those nominees confirmed. He trails President Obama on both measures. President Trump has sent 33 appointees to the Senate for confirmation with 18 already confirmed. But cabinet level nominations are simply the tip of a vast political appointee iceberg.
These top aides are just a slice of the thousands of positions Trump’s transition team may need to find appointees for — people who will oversee day-to-day operations at the agencies that make up the executive branch of government.

When President Obama left office on Jan. 20, so did his appointees, which means President-elect Donald Trump can fill more than 4,000 vacancies by presidential appointment in his new administration.
Positions range from high-profile advisers and Cabinet posts to ambassadors, small agency directors and special assistants. Team Trump has already received more than 65,000 résumés from job seekers.
These are positions listed in the Office of Personnel Management’s newly released Plum Book. Trump has said he will trim the bureaucracy, so some may not be filled. (The book actually lists about 9,000 jobs, but about 5,000 of those are nonpolitical and filled with civil servants who don’t usually leave when the president does.)

Roughly 500 appointees do not require Senate approval. These make up the so called “beachhead” teams deployed to various government agencies and departments. The beachhead team members are temporary employees serving for stints of four to eight months, but many are expected to move into permanent jobs. The Trump Administration’s model is based on plans developed, but never used, by the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Mitt Romney. However, personnel asymmetries do not end with appointees. The Administration will need to hone in on congressional differences and change the tone of a jubilant but disorganized ruling party in order to fulfill campaign promises.

Two thirds of this Congress has never served under a Republican president. Many of the Representatives in the House were elected largely as a result of the backlash over ACA in 2010. They must now transition into a governing party that coordinates messages, and pursues policy in an unequivocal manner lest they become victim to their own intransigence. If you are the opposition party, it is quite easy to hold a press conference and show your “10-Point Plan” to save the world. It is quite a different thing to write passable legislation.

Perhaps nowhere is that more true than in the budget reconciliation measures being taken to revise the Affordable Care Act. Without super-majority control of the Senate, Republicans must use a budget reconciliation to dismantle Obama’s signature law. However, using this method has its limitations. They can only focus on funding matters and not on the full scope of the law. The House Budget Committee began marking up its ACA repeal legislation (The American Healthcare Act, AHCA) last Wednesday.

The GOP bill went to the budget panel after a combined 44 hours of debate in two key committees since Wednesday morning. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has said the House will pass the measure, likely over the objections of some conservatives, by the end of March. The House Ways and Means Committee approved the bill, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee completed its 27-hour markup yesterday.

The debate over the AHCA is but the warm-up to the greater budget race about to start. On Thursday, March 16 at 7 am, president Trump released his ‘skinny’ budget. A president’s budget is more of a wish list than anything else, and this blueprint will face tough scrutiny in the congressional appropriations process, which turns the budget request into law.

It is important to remember that the President’s budget is the initial step in the federal budget and appropriation process. Before any spending is finalized, the House and Senate must pass spending bills for the President to sign. Many members of Congress – Republicans and Democrats – have expressed skepticism about the budget, even before it was announced and Thursday’s release increased those doubts.
While there is a long road to a final spending bill, this proposal is an important bellwether for how Trump and his administration view the federal budget and government spending.

Campaigning is easy, governing is hard. The sheer magnitude of interest groups pushing for their slice of cake adds a layer of fury to the mess of government. Perhaps our founding fathers designed it to be this way. Too much efficiency can mean there is a great deal of concentrated power. As the old adage goes, you may campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose.

When it comes to advocacy days in the Capitol, the first line is the bottom line. Members of Congress and their staff like facts, they like research, and they love it when smart, even-handed academics convey the benefits of their work. Last week, the Dean of Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering Dr. Ravi Bellamkonda journeyed up to Washington, D.C. to open dialogue in times of uncertainty and to fulfill precisely that role of communicator.

With colleagues from other North Carolina universities, the Dean shuffled between congressional offices illuminating the concerns of the engineering education community. From the need for stable research funding and higher budget caps, to the importance of research in infrastructure planning and the value of a robust research enterprise for local economies, there was an abundance of topics to cover.

In some ways, the most difficult part of the Dean’s job was picking and choosing which elements of the Duke research enterprise to share with lawmakers. Apart from the inherent value of new technologies emerging from Duke labs, the Dean, per his position as both an administrator and an academic, also conveyed the larger difficulties of running a large-scale research institution in tumultuous times. How can our scientists conduct long-term research on medical device implementation when budget projections are so unknown?

As an ambassador for the Duke community, the Dean’s areas of concern were not limited to science and technology. He also shared a timely message on the impacts the recent immigration Executive Order had on the Duke family. Adding in personal vignettes and putting a face on the effects of policy decisions helps color an otherwise political decision for lawmakers. The value of an advocacy day is perhaps best illuminated when advocates of one field are able to reach across disciplines to bring in the importance of another.

But the Dean was not simply a conduit for policy proposals; he is proof of their success.  A graduate of Osmania University (India), Ravi Bellamkonda then attended Brown University on an immigrant visa to pursue his PhD and eventually did his post-doctoral training at MIT.  Bellamkonda is no stranger to international education and the value of borders open to research collaboration.

By partnering with government programs and reiterating the benefits of that work to our elected leaders, we can better enforce a cycle of educated policymaking. There is an intersection between what Duke is good at doing and what is worth doing, and we must continually ask what can our research programs produce that is meaningful in the world. This is the strength of Duke. This gives us a differential advantage. But it is also the strength of Dean Bellamkonda.

So our advice for when you come to the Capitol to share research is to come with facts. Come prepared to engage and debate. But also come with perspective. Dean Bellamkonda’s strengths were not limited to his engineering acumen. For the Dean’s visit to the Capitol, the values of diversity, research, and a free and open academic environment are simply facts of life.