Policy Blog

Our annual members' visit to Capitol Hill had been planned for mid-March this year, but due to the coronavirus pandemic we postponed to September and decided to try a virtual CVD. It went reasonably well!

The Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education has released a repository of information on their efforts, along with an annual report on the Action Collaborative’s activities.

Here is a look at astronomy-related policy events on the schedule for October 2020.

Back in May, the AAS's Committee on Astronomy and Public Policy (CAPP) issued a survey to the AAS membership to evaluate impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic. Here is a summary of the survey results.

Today and tomorrow (8-9 September), we ask you to contact your congressional delegation via email and/or social media to encourage passage of the RISE Act authorization bill (H.R. 7308, S. 4286).

The House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittees met to finalize their fiscal year 2021 markups. Here are some details on the funding for NASA and other federal agencies that support the astronomical sciences.

US immigration and visa programs have been experiencing an accelerating crisis these past few weeks, and the AAS public policy team has been working, along with other professional societies, on these issues.

President Trump's 22 June proclamation that suspends various entry visas is devastating to many early career scientists, and the sentiment behind the order is deeply unsettling for all of us, writes Paula Szkody.

Sethuraman Panchanathan has been officially confirmed as NSF's 15th director. He commits to a continued push for inclusiveness in science and engineering and to the advancement of world-leading fundamental research.

The AAS encourages everyone in our community to make a lifelong commitment to action to eradicate anti-Black racism in the astronomical sciences and in academia and research more generally, beginning Wednesday, 10 June.