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Dear Colleagues, In what has become a process almost so routine as to not be newsworthy, the US Congress has passed a bill extending the Continuing Resolution until December 16. Somewhat unusually however, the bill sets 2012 budgets for the following five Cabinet-level departments: Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. Funding for NASA and a number of smaller agencies, including NSF, was also approved. NASA overall funding is down 3.5%, but $530 million was included for the James Webb Space Telescope, compared to the White House's $374 million request, and no initial funding at all in the original House appropriations. NSF funding overall is up 2.5%, but with the following notable cuts: Graduate STEM Fellowships in K-12 Education: $26 million. National STEM Education Distributed Learning: $10 million Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory: $12 million. Sincerely, Norman Graf