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7/29 • Appropriations Committee Zap

The Senate is marking up the NIH bill this week. Please call as many of the Appropriations Committee Senators as you can!

Instructions:

Use the Contacts table below to find phone numbers for key Senators
Call the Senators and use the provided Script
Add personalized language for certain Senators (listed below their contacts) to the end of the universal Script

Script

SEPA is NIH’s nationwide K-12 biomedical, healthcare, and STEM workforce development program, the only federal program fulfilling this role. SEPA supports colleges, universities, non-profits and museums in providing K-12 students with career exposure and skills training and their teachers with the relevant, up-to-date content and pedagogy K-12 schools simply don’t have the capacity to supply. SEPA’s budget of about $24M is only 0.0005% of the NIH total. It funds 100+ SEPA awards. They reach more than 16 million K-12 students and teachers, and more than 29 million family and community members annually.

In 2017 a Republican Congress with bipartisan support first ensured that SEPAs vital role in NIGMS’s capacity building mission was fully funded. This year NIH has failed to ask the Appropriations Committee to fund SEPA.

We are asking you to protect the nationwide SEPA program by including language in the NIH Appropriations Bill that protects SEPA funding at current levels and also reinstates those already funded programs, nearly half of the total, that are still summarily terminated.

Contacts

Majority (GOP)

Susan Collins (Committee Chair, ME) 202-224-2523

You personally rescued both of Maine’s SEPA grants but if the whole program is eliminated, they will disappear anyway.

Katie Britt (Major role in writing NIH appropriations, AL) 202-224-5744

Both of Alabama’s highly respected programs have been terminated. Alabama is now a K-12 biomedical and health care workforce development desert.

Shelley Moore Capito (Subcommittee Chair, WV) 202-224-6472

West Virginia’s highly effective SEPA program is in limbo, if SEPA is terminated West Virginia will be a K-12 biomedical and health care workforce development desert.

Patty Murray (Subcommittee Vice-Chair, WA) 202-224-2621

Your state’s highly effective SEPA program has been terminated/ are in limbo. Unless you preserve them and the SEPA program itself you will be a K-12 biomedical and health care workforce development desert.

Mitch McConnell (KY) 202-224-2541

Lisa Murkowski (AK) 202-224-6665

John Boozman (AR) 202-224-4843

Both of Arkansas’ highly respected SEPA programs have been terminated. Arkansas is now a K-12 biomedical and health care workforce development desert.

John Kennedy (LA) 202-224-4623

If NIGMS eliminates SEPA, Louisiana will lose its highly effective program.

Jerry Moran (KS) 202 224-6521

Cindy Hyde-Smith (MI) 202-224-5054

One of Mississippi’s highly effective SEPA programs has been terminated and the other is in limbo. Unless you preserve them and the SEPA program itself you will be a K-12 biomedical and health care workforce development desert.

Lindsey Graham (SC) 202-224-5972

South Carolina’s highly effective SEPA program is in limbo. Unless you preserve it and the SEPA program itself you will be a K-12 biomedical and health care workforce development desert.

Bill Hagerty (TN) 202-224-4944

Minority (Democrats)

Patty Murray (Ranking member, WA ) 202-224-2621

Chris Murphy (CT) 202-224-4041

Dick Durbin (IL) 202-224-2152

Brian Schatz (HI) 202-224-393

Jack Reed (RI) 202-224-4642

Jeanne Shaheen (NH) 202-224-2841

Jeff Merkley (OR) 202-224-3753

Chris Coons (DE) 202-224-5042

Tammy Baldwin (WI) 202-224-5653

Chris Van Hollen (MD) 202-224-4654

Martin Heinrich (NM) 202-224-5521

Gary Peters (MI) 202-224-6221

Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) 202-224-4451

Jon Ossoff (GA) 202-224-3521

Contact: board@nsepassoc.org

The contents of this website belong to the National Science Education Partnerships Association, and do not represent the position of any university, college, or other entity where SEPA programs are carried out.

© National Science Education Partnerships Association 2025