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To Udall Bill Activists: As most of you know the House-Senate conferees met last week to consider the Labor/HHS Appropriations bill for FY 1998. The Senate version of the Bill contains the Udall Bill while the House version does not. Our efforts have been directed recently to the Labor/HHS Appropriations Subcommittee members who make up the House-Senate conference. We have been asking them to make sure that the Udall bill provisions were part of the House Senate conference bill. The Conferees may or may not meet yet this week to continue their deliberations of this legislation. It will be a short week because of the Jewish Holidays. Therefore, the conferees probably won't complete their work until next week. My advice is to temporarily suspend grass roots activities until their deliberations are concluded. Our efforts to date have been well directed and effective. Any additional activity could prove counterproductive and undo some of our accomplishments. If the conferees accept the Udall Bill provisions in their conference report, we should postpone any celebrations until after the bill is PASSED by both Houses of Congress. We can expect action on this by Mid-October. If you have any additional questions or comments feel free to reply via email or call NPF's Washington Office and ask for Bill Turenne or myself.