The Senate will close the summer session with more funding for old gas-guzzling cars and some ag issues  - and a historic Supreme Court nomination.

Health care reform still sits on the burners.  They're still gathering the ingredients for the Senate version, but Speaker Pelosi was able to force some hash through the House.  Whether you agree or disagree with health care reform, if we're going to have to eat it, it should look more like Sunday's roast beef, not Monday's roast beef hash.

Anyway, HCR still does not include provisions to answer our call for greater attention to men's health issues and prostate cancer.  We are getting some sympathy though and one concession that we've begun to see is that ears are starting to perk up at the mention of an Office of Men's Health.  There is a great deal of confusion of what is and is not covered in both the House and the Senate, and that will only make our job to secure provisions for prostate cancer early detection and care even more difficult.

On the appropriations front, the House has passed all of the bills.  At the end of the week, the Senate will have passed all of the bills except Defense.  NIH will see significant increases and their estimates show significant increases for prostate cancer research.  The House bill has level funded all of the programs in the CDMRP, so if we are to see an increase in research funding at DOD, it will have to be done through the Senate.

As of now, it appears that all of the appropriations bills are on schedule to complete work before the end of the fiscal year (September 30).  The bills have been helped by the focus on health care reform and the soon to be new Supreme Court Justice.

Finally - about this time of year we are working with the Senate and the White House on a resolution and a proclomation for Prostate Cancer Awareness Month.  The resolution (although I have not received updated language yet) is on track - we've met with the Senators involved and they are on board to pass the resolution in September.

The proclomation remains to be determined.  Unfortunately, the White House has not (a probably will not) re-established the Office of Proclomations.  Instead all such requests are directed to the Greetings Desk which also receives many other types of requests for the President, Vice-President, the First Lady and other important White House staff and officials.  This means that they get thousands of requests DAILY - and are not helpful on the phone either.  So it remains to be seen whether an Presidential proclomation will be issued this year, but my hopes are not high for that to happen.

Congress returns to work on September 8 and we here at ZERO have a busy couple of months in front of us.  I hope you are joining us for some of the activities that are going on between now and the end of September.