Mass. seeks a voice in debt talks

The report, which Markey’s office will release today, coincides with the first hearings of the supercommittee, a bipartisan group of six Democrats and six Republicans charged with slowing the growth of the federal debt by $1.5 trillion to $4 trillion. The rules setting up the committee give other members of Congress no formal mechanisms for molding or amending the plan while it’s being developed. And they can only vote the final proposal up or down.

That leaves lawmakers such as Markey with few options but to directly plead with supercommittee members - including the Bay State senator John F. Kerry, a Democrat - to preserve funding and programs.

“It strikes me as a very rational response to the somewhat undemocratic situation that we find ourselves in,’’ said John Wonderlich, policy director of a Washington watchdog group, the Sunlight Foundation. Wonderlich added, however, that he knows of no other state delegation trying to organize a unified front in this way.

Markey says the report is intended to explain “to everyone who doesn’t have a lobbyist’’ how the debt reduction process will unfold, show the potential impacts on the state, and provide a foundation for unified action.

The state, with its dependence on innovation industries as a mechanism of overall economic growth, is particularly vulnerable, the report says. Only California tops Massachusetts in receiving research grants and funds from the National Institutes of Health. Last year, the agency funneled some $2.5 billion to teaching hospitals, universities, and companies across the state, supporting 35,000 jobs, the report said .