Wyden and Merkley Post Appropriations Requests Online
Public Asked to Comment on Requests
Washington, D.C. - Oregonians are invited to start reviewing and commenting on FY '10 appropriations requests received by the offices of U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). The first wave of appropriations requests received by the two offices -- for the Commerce, State, Justice and Defense appropriations bills -- were posted today at: http://wyden.senate.gov and http://merkley.senate.gov. The hundreds of additional appropriations requests received by the Senators' offices will be posted online over the coming weeks.
The appropriations proposals being posted include every request received and have not been vetted or approved by the Senate offices. Wyden and Merkley decided to post every request that their offices received this year and ask for citizen input in an effort to give Oregonians a greater voice in determining federal spending priorities. Not all of the requests received by the two senators will be submitted for funding consideration, and the senators will factor public support for appropriations projects into their decision-making. Also, only requests deemed to have congressional funding potential will be submitted to the Senate Appropriations Committee, and that committee will then select a limited number of projects from each state for funding.
"In a good budget year, the Congress would only approve a handful of these projects at a fraction of what has been requested, and we are obviously not looking at a good budget year," said Senator Wyden's Chief of Staff, Josh Kardon. "By commenting online, Oregonians can help play an important role in ensuring that the most deserving requests are selected to compete for funding by the Senate Appropriations Committee."
Oregonians who want to comment through Senator Wyden's site can go to http://wyden.senate.gov/issues/appropriations/index.cfm.
Senator Merkley's site will accept comments at http://www.merkley.senate.gov/contact/contact.cfm.
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