Dear Colleagues,

This year's HEP budget, contained in the Omnibus bill just signed by the President this morning, has been rather devastating for HEP. Perhaps you watched the All-Hands meeting at Fermilab this morning on streaming video.

We must take this opportunity to make the public and by extension our lawmakers aware of the impact of this funding recision on HEP and science and the country. One method that's been discussed is asking physicists around the country to write letters to the editor of their local papers (all politics is local), or perhaps Op Ed pieces. The guidelines posted here mention some potentially important themes (thanks to Steve Pierson at APS for drafting these).

A few of us have asked 'does this [budget] just affect Fermilab?' or 'how is the LHC affected?' or 'is astroparticle physics still OK?'. None of us has a crystal ball, but it's probably safe to say that an 8% cut in a single field is not good for any of us and does not bode well for coming years' support from Congress. A field that is entirely off-shored is increasingly vulnerable, and arguments of 'maintaining core competencies' increasingly sound hollow. WE MUST CONSIDER THE FUTURE OF *ALL* U.S. HEP TO BE IN JEOPARDY BY SUCH DRAMATIC CUTS.

Thank you for considering this important education of our public and ourlawmakers.