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This may be review for some...I hope it is useful for others... The Udall Bill requests $100million for up to 10 research centers and grants for up to 5 years, among other projects, for research toward treatment and cure of PD. $100 million is not a lot of money in federal budgetary terms, but there are hundreds of requests before Congress for funding of equally good causes competing for dwindling health care research funding each year. The bill was assigned in April to the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee and the Health and Environment Subcomittee of the House Commerce Committee for review and vote on whether or not it should be considered by the full House and Senate. This is standard procedure for spending bills. The Senate AUTHORIZES the spending, (says OK to the idea of spending some money for this purpose) the House APPROPRIATES it (tells us how much the federal budget can afford to spend on this idea.) This bill may be referred to other committees before it actually makes it to the floor for a vote. The House is currently in recess, and with November elections pending for many members, it is unlikely that any action would be taken on this bill before January of next year. In the Senate, the bill is called S. 535, is sponsored by Sen. McCain and has 64 cosponsors. In the House, the bill is called H.R. 1260 and is sponsored by Rep. Upton along with 255 cosponsors. You can assume that a cosponsor of the bill will vote and support it, so that leaves 36 Senators and 180 Members of Congress who need to hear from you! [I may be showing my stripes here, but a quick review of the cosponsors list showed that most are Democrats... ] To find out who your Senator or House member is, enter your zipcode at: http://www.vote-smart.org/multiple.html To find out if your Senator or House member is a cosponsor of the Udall Bill, go to: http://thomas.loc.gov/ enter either S. 535 (for Senators) or H.R. 1260 (for House members) in the search box choose bill summary choose COSPONSORS If he or she IS NOT a cosponsor... call or write them today!! Email me directly if you'd like to know more tricks of the trade from a former Capitol Hill staffer... -Leslie == Leslie Lillard Walden ([log in to unmask]) w: 617-563-7639 h: 617-424-9126 _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com