Dear GSNJ members and friends: There has been some discussion on this list (and others) recently regarding the Federal Budget and the zeroing out of funding for the National Historical Records and Publication Commission. Just yesterday there was some new and more positive information regarding this issue. Since many of you may have signed petitions or written letters asking for the funding to be restored, I thought you would like to see where things stand now. The information that follows was taken from the National Coalition for History's daily news update. Information on the NCH and their newsletter also follows. I believe it has been worthwhile for me to subscribe and urge you all to check it out if you haven't already. I apologize for the length of the combination! Regards, Joan Joan M. Lowry Genealogical Society of New Jersey mailto:jml-gsnj@earthlink.net website: www.gsnj.org -------------- HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE GIVES NEW LIFE TO NHPRC On 15 June 2005, the House Transportation, Treasury and Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, District of Columbia Appropriations subcommittee reported out its recommendations for NARA and the NHPRC. Although the House subcommittee did not make its totals for the National Archives and Records Administration as a whole public (official numbers are generally not released until the full appropriations committee acts on the recommendations), it did publicly announce a figure for the NHPRC -- $7.5 million of which $5.5 million is for grants and $2 million is for program administration. Complete totals for NARA will only be available on 21 June when the full committee announces its budget recommendations. While this news about the House subcommittee recommendation is a step in the right direction, there is still much that needs to be done to ensure that the full House acts positively on the appropriation's subcommittee recommendations. For example, during the subcommittee mark-up, the committee chair did not permit any amendments. That means that when the full appropriations committee meets to consider the Treasury/Transportation bill next Tuesday, in theory, any member of the full committee could target the NHPRC funds and use it as an "offset" to fund some other project out of the Treasury/Transportation bill. The NHPRC also could become a target for an offset on the House floor as well -- at this point we just don't know. Consequently, NHPRC supporters are urged to continue to send expressions of support for the NHPRC funding to all members of the House Appropriations Committee. (The list of the members of the full House Appropriations Committee can be accessed by tapping into: (http://appropriations.house.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=AboutTheCommittee.Full Committee and ten click on the "Member List" key at the top of the webpage.) Constituents of any member listed on the above webpage, are particularly urged to call their representative and request that they support the subcommittee recommendation of $7.5 million for the NHPRC when the full committee meets on Tuesday. --------------- The National Coalition for History is a non-profit educational organization that provides leadership in history-related advocacy; it serves as the profession's national voice in the promotion of history and archives, and acts as a clearinghouse of news and information of interest to history-related professionals. Membership in the history coalition is open to organizations that share our concern for history and archives. For information on how your history/archive organization can become a member, visit our website at: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~nch/ and click on the "Join the Coalition" web link. Individuals are invited to help support the NCH by sending a donation directly to the NCH at 400 A Street S.E. Washington D.C. 20003, or, by making an on-line donation at: http://www.conservenow.org/detail.asp?ORGID=2032&memflag=true . All contributions are tax deductible. Subscribe Today! We invite you to subscribe to this FREE weekly newsletter! You are also encouraged to redistribute the NCH Washington Updates to colleagues, friends, teachers, students and others who are interested in history and archives issues. A complete backfile of these reports is maintained by H-Net on the NCH's recently updated web page at http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~nch . To subscribe to the "NCH Washington Update," send an e-mail message to listserv@h-net.msu.edu with the following text in the body of the message (and only this text) SUBSCRIBE H-NCH firstname lastname, institution. To unsubscribe, send an e-mail message to: listserv@h-net.msu.edu according to the following model: SIGNOFF H-NCH. You can accomplish the same tasks by tapping into the web interface at http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/lists/subscribe.cgi and at the "network" prompt, scroll down and select H-NCH; enter your name and affiliation and "submit".