PCMA President and CEO Deborah Sexton urged the association’s members May 17 to launch a Congressional letter-writing campaign in support of changes to amendments that passed the House and Senate that would greatly curtail spending on government meetings.
The proposed modifications to the amendments request a change of the definition of a conference to apply only to government-sponsored meetings and to not include meetings and conferences held by associations and other private sector organizations. The modifications request would also strike the provision in the amendment that restricts agencies from attending more than one conference held by a private organization per fiscal year.
For more tips on how to write the letter, go to the template provided by another industry organization, ASAE, which is available at www.capwiz.com/asae/issues/alert/?alertid=61339221
ASAE, PCMA and other industry organizations delivered their own letter with 2,100 signatures to Congress the previous week. Subsequent to the letter delivery, the Obama administration issued a directive to federal agencies to cut their travel budgets for fiscal year 2013 by 30 percent and cap spending on government-sponsored conferences at $500,000.
These new restrictions apply only to government travel and conference spending, and do not have the broader implications for association and other private sector meetings that were evident in the amendments cleared by the House and Senate just prior to the last Congressional recess.