Federal:
The Senate Committee on Appropriations’ FY18 Labor, HHS, and Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill was approved earlier this month. Of note, NIH funding would increase $2.0 billion, to $36.1 billion. Funding for the National Library of Medicine would increase $21 million to $420.9 million. The IMLS budget would increase $4 million, to $235 million, funding that is exclusively for the Grants to States program. While an earlier FY18 budget proposed by the Trump administration would cut NIH funding by 18% and the IMLS by 100%, grassroots campaigns have led to congressional support of healthcare and libraries. More on library funding is reported in this piece from the District Dispatch.
There again is movement in Congress to overhaul healthcare legislation. The Congressional Record provides a transcript of these discussions, including this report from Sept. 18, 2017. The bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act is H.R. 1628, the American Health Care Act of 2017. FactCheck.org provides information on the proposed GOP health care bills, although at the time of writing this post, the site has not been updated to reflect current legislative action. The Washington Post provides more current coverage. Congress has until September 30 to pass this bill with 50 votes.
IT modernization in the Copyright Office is moving forward, under the direction of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. The Modified U.S. Copyright Office Provisional IT Modernization Plan was released earlier this month. Read a synopsis of these efforts as reported by the District Dispatch.
State:
If you haven’t tried the LegiScan website, you definitely should. LegiScan tracks legislation in all 50 states and on the federal level. It creates an easy to read dashboard of what is going on and points to the details for each new bill and/or amendment. See the Illinois Dashboard here. It is much easier to work with than the General Assembly website for keeping up on all of the legislation being discussed.