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Higher Ed Organizations Urge Budget Committee to Eliminate Sequestration, Support Research and Education

U S Capitol building
image © Wally Gobetz

On Friday, November 1, ARL joined the American Council on Education (ACE) and more than 30 other organizations in a letter (PDF) to the chairs of the US congressional committee deliberating a budget agreement. The organizations are asking the budget committee to eliminate the FY 2014 sequestration spending reductions and to prioritize investments in research and education.

The letter states, “as you begin your discussions on a budget agreement for FY14, the higher education associations listed below encourage you to pursue two key goals: 1) eliminating the FY14 sequester reductions; and 2) placing a high priority on the investments that will build our economy in both the short and long term. The cuts imposed by the blunt instrument of sequestration have already negatively impacted the very programs on which the American economy depends. Scientific research, student aid and workforce training programs have all been cut at the expense of the competitive advantage our nation seeks to maintain.” 

The budget committee has set a date in mid-December to conclude their discussions.


The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 125 research libraries in the US and Canada. Its mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, facilitating the emergence of new roles for research libraries, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is on the web at https://www.arl.org/.

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