Florida Action Center

SAVE FLORIDA'S CANCER RESEARCH PROGRAMS
Week 8 Session Update
4/23/2010

Significant progress has been made on our priorities as we head into the final week of the 2010 Legislative Session. The budget negotiation process, still not completed, will continue in earnest through the weekend, however. The American Cancer Society continues to impress upon House and Senate leadership the importance of reauthorizing and adequately funding Florida’s biomedical research programs, which are set to expire on January 1, 2011 barring action by the Legislature. Throughout week 8, the Senate Health and Human Services/House Health Care Appropriations conference committee met to discuss their respective budget offers, attempting to reconcile their differences in order to finalize a responsible, balanced budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1^st. While the massive $3.2 billion deficit has spared no one from potential budget cuts, the hard work of our advocates appears to be paying off. As we have been reporting for weeks, the House’s original proposed budget would have eliminated funding for the Bankhead-Coley Cancer Research Program altogether and would have cut the King Biomedical Research Program by 92%. After several weeks of negotiations, the House and Senate now tentatively has the Bankhead-Coley Cancer Research Program funded at $20 million for the upcoming year and the King Biomedical Research Program at $22.2 million.

As we move into the final week of the 2010 session, I encourage to visit www.acscan.org/florida  often to see if our Action Alert Center has any posted calls to action.

Also moving closer to resolution in the budget negotiations is our other major legislative priority, funding for Amendment 4, the Tobacco Prevention and Education Program. While both chambers appropriately funded the program at nearly $61.3 million in their original budgets, there were major differences in the way each chamber allocated the proceeds, specifically in the State and Community Interventions category, where the House has been proposing to divert $9 million to the Department of Children and Family Services for functions we believe would not comport with Florida’s Constitution and CDC Best Practices for tobacco control. Late this week, the House agreed not to provide statutory authority to divert these funds. This is a very positive development. This area of the budget is expected to be resolved very soon.

We will continue to call upon our Grassroots Army, as necessary, to help advance our legislative priorities.  We appreciate your ongoing efforts in support of our life-saving mission.  Thanks for all you do to wage war against this disease!

Yours in the Fight,

Paul

Paul Hull
Vice President, Advocacy & Public Policy
American Cancer Society, Florida Division

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