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SENATE FY2007 L/HHS
APPROPRIATIONS
Status of L/HHS Appropriations Bill (NIH):
As was reported in the prior edition of the
Washington Update, the Senate Appropriations
Committee recommended that NIH receive $28.459
billion in FY2007, an increase of $220 million,
which is less than a one-percent increase
[0.78%], over its FY2006 appropriation.
The FY2007 Senate Labor, Health and Human
Services and Education (L/HHS) Appropriations
Subcommittee bill is not expected to be voted on
by the Senate prior to the November elections
because the Senate Republican Leadership
understands that without additional funding for
health and education programs, the bill would
not pass. In addition, they realize that many
Senators are prepared to offer amendments to add
money to the bill, which would result in the
bill exceeding the President’s cap for
non-defense, non-homeland security spending.
Committee Report Language:
The FY2007 Senate L/HHS Appropriations
Subcommittee bill and report [S. 3708, S. Rpt.
109-287] includes the following key directives
that will impact NIH.
1. National Children’s Study Bill
Language:
While the Senate Committee did not follow the
House of Representative’s action to include bill
language directing the National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to
“dedicate $69 million from within funds provided
to continue the National Children’s Study,
including funding all Vanguard Centers and any
other
activities that were planned for fiscal year
2007,” the Senate did state its strong
disappointment that the President’s budget
eliminated funding for the program. Senate
report language (please note that report
language does not have the force of law that
bill language represents) stated that, “The
committee supports full and timely
implementation of the study and has included
funds within the Office of the Director to
continue the study. However, the committee urged
the study’s leadership to reconsider the
scientific strategy to measure environmental
exposures and genetic factors as well as assess
the scientific merit of the study components.
2. Budget Justification Materials:
The Senate Committee report also expressed
strong dissatisfaction with the information NIH
provides when submitting its annual Institutes
and Centers (ICs) Congressional budget
justifications. The Senate commented that, “In
recent years, the content of the NIH
justification materials has become less
informative, often failing to provide clear,
concise and detailed information. In addition,
the committee commented that it “plans to work
with NIH to develop a more consistent format
that affords increased transparency of NIH
research activities, both ongoing and proposed,
and provides greater accountability of research
dollars.
3. Public Access Bill Language:
The Committee remained silent on whether it
agreed (or disagreed) with the House bill
language that directed the Director of NIH to
require that all investigators funded by NIH
submit an electronic version of their final,
peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for
publication to the NIH National Library of
Medicine’s PubMed Central database as soon as
practicable but no later than 12 months after
the official date of publication. The conference
report will need to address this issue.
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HOUSE FY2007 L/HHS APPROPRIATIONS
Status of L/HHS Appropriations Bill (NIH):
The House L/HHS Appropriations bill remains the
lone spending bill not to have reached the House
floor. You may remember that the L/HHS bill was
being held up due to the minimum wage amendment
that had been attached during Committee mark-up.
The situation changed somewhat when (just prior
to recessing for the traditional five-week
summer recess) House Republican leaders pushed
through a separate legislative package that
included the minimum wage increase. While this
eliminated one of the main obstacles preventing
the L/HHS bill from being debated by the full
House, House Republican leaders continue to
appear unwilling to ask Republican moderates
(prior to the November elections) to support a
bill that would severely restrain health and
education. Therefore, it appears that both the
House and Senate L/HHS Appropriations
Subcommittee bills will most likely bypass floor
action and proceed directly to House-Senate
conference once the lame duck session begins in
November.
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NSF AND DOE'S OFFICE OF
SCIENCE APPROPRIATIONS OUTLOOK
It’s expected that the defense appropriations
bill will be the only annual spending bill to
reach the President’s desk before the end of the
fiscal year on September 30. This means that the
balance of the eleven (in the House) and twelve
(in the Senate) appropriations bills will be
postponed until the lame duck session in
November and December. However, it appears that
once Congress does take up the appropriations
bills, the budgets for the National Science
Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy’s
Office of Science will fare quite well. Both the
House and Senate agreed to provide NSF and DOE’s
Office of Science with funding levels close to
what the President recommended. The FY2007
budget for NSF is expected to reach $6.0
billion, which would represent a 7.9 percent
increase over FY2006. The FY2007 budget for the
Department of Energy’s Office of Science will
most likely be $4.1 billion, which would
represent a 14.1 percent increase over FY2006.
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INSIDE (The Beltway) SCOOP
- Jon Retzlaff, Legislative Director
During the August Congressional recess, one of
our goals (within FASEB’s Office of Public
Affairs) is to help FASEB society member
scientists, clinicians and scholars become more
involved in advocating for biomedical research
on a much more targeted and local level. We hope
to establish and implement an initiative to
encourage NIH-funded FASEB society members to
identify opportunities to educate their
Congressional representatives, local leaders and
the general public regarding the importance of
increased funding for NIH and other scientific
agencies.
FASEB’s Office of Public Affairs has prepared a
presentation in the form of a series of slides
to highlight the benefits of biomedical research
funding. The information included in the
presentation can be adjusted and/or tailored to
represent your specific area of the country. We
hope that FASEB society members will use this
resource to convince others of the benefits from
investing in our science related agencies, such
as NIH, NSF, DOE’s Office of Science, NASA, the
National Research Initiative (NRI) within the
Department of Agriculture and the Medical and
Prosthetics Research Program at the Department
of Veteran’s Affairs (VA).
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NIH REAUTHORIZATION
On Friday, July 28, 2006, the House recessed for
its annual August break without introducing an
NIH Reauthorization bill. House Energy and
Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX)
had indicated that he would either introduce a
bill or provide the broader research community
with a discussion draft prior to leaving town.
However, since this did not happen, it’s now not
clear whether we will see an updated draft or
bill before Congress returns in September.
FASEB, the Association of American Medical
Colleges (AAMC), the Association of American
Universities (AAU) and the National Association
of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC)
spent much of the month of July engaged in many
hours of discussions with Chairman Barton and
his staff regarding many of the key provisions
included in Mr. Barton’s proposal. Chairman
Barton’s goal is to establish some kind of
agreement on the main concepts with the four
groups before disseminating his proposal to the
broader research and patient organizations.
Specific Concepts Proposed
NIH Common Fund: The most problematic and
controversial of the provisions Chairman Barton
is proposing concerns his interest to increase
the common fund at a much faster rate than we
can support. Chairman Barton’s initial proposal
was to set the common fund at 5 percent of NIH’s
overall budget in FY2007; 7.5 percent in FY2008;
and 10 percent in the final year of the
authorization (FY2009), regardless of what NIH
received in annual increases.
While it is important to recognize that the
money NIH currently spends on Roadmap
initiatives would become part of the common
fund, the Roadmap initiatives are projected to
cost $443 million in FY2007, which is 1.5
percent of NIH’s overall budget, and far below
the five percent Chairman Barton is seeking.
During our discussions, we have not so much
questioned the merits of the common fund (which
would be used to support unique, innovative and
cutting edge research that no one IC could do)
as much as expressed concern that growing it so
fast during a period of flat funding would
severely affect the individual ICs.
However, it appears that Chairman Barton is
beginning to understand our concerns because he
has directed his staff to provide us with an
updated proposal that would base the common fund
increase on the overall NIH’s increase, and
ensure that IC’s receive a significant portion
of any overall NIH increase. Throughout these
discussions, we have encouraged Mr. Barton and
his staff to adopt Dr. Zerhouni’s vision for the
common fund. Dr. Zerhouni has publicly stated
that the common fund should not grow beyond 1.7
percent until NIH is growing at a rate above
biomedical inflation. Unfortunately, Chairman
Barton does not believe that this is a bold
enough plan.
Overall NIH Authorization Levels:
Chairman Barton’s proposal would authorize NIH
to receive five percent increases for each of
the three-year reauthorization period. Once the
three-year authorization expires, the
authorization level would revert to the current
“such sums as necessary” language (assuming, of
course, that NIH is not reauthorized again in
2009). Therefore, this is an issue that does not
concern us because the chances (in this
difficult fiscal environment) of NIH receiving
five percent increases are remote at best.
Establishment of a Division of Program
Coordination: Chairman Barton proposes that
this Division would help identify research that
represents important areas of emerging
scientific opportunities, rising public health
challenges or knowledge gaps that would benefit
from conducting or supporting additional
research involving collaboration between two or
more ICs. This Division is quite similar in
structure and responsibility to NIH’s Office of
Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Initiatives (OPASI).
Linking Institute and Center Annual Budget
Increases to Amount of Collaborative Efforts:
Chairman Barton initially proposed that ICs
annual funding increases should be determined
based on the level of internal collaborative
work (“shared funding”) that the IC, as
determined by each Institute and Center
Director, engaged in during the previous fiscal
year. However, it appears that Chairman Barton
is beginning to understand our concerns about
how this may lead to many unintended
consequences, such as the concern that
investigator-initiated research proposals will
be less emphasized, and NIH scientific program
staff would exert much more influence over the
direction of science than is optimal. Therefore,
we are optimistic that this provision will be
removed or changed substantially.
Establishment of a Scientific Management
Review Board for Periodic Organizational
Reviews: Chairman Barton’s proposal would
mandate that this review be done in one year,
and require that all recommendations be
implemented within three years.
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