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APPROPRIATIONS -
STATUS & OUTLOOK FOR FY2007 SPENDING BILLS (NIH,
NSF & DOE)
FY2007 Continuing Resolution
Congress reassembled the week of December 4th
for its final week of the lame-duck session. It
did not, however, devote the week to completing
work on the ten remaining FY2007 spending bills,
including the measures that fund the National
Institutes of Health, the National Science
Foundation and the Department of Energy’s Office
of Science. Instead Congress decided to pass a
continuing resolution (CR) through February 15,
2007, for those agencies whose FY2007 spending
bills have not yet been enacted. Democrats
expressed frustration with the Republicans
“cutting and running” from their most basis
constitutional responsibility – passing
appropriations bills.
Democrats Announce Plan for Funding
Agencies in FY2007
On December 12th, Democratic leaders announced
that they would not attempt to complete the
individual FY2007 spending bills abandoned by
the outgoing Republican
leadership when the Democratic-led Congress
convenes in January. Instead they have agreed to
extend current funding levels (FY 2006 funding
levels) until the FY2008 begins on October 1st,
2007. Therefore, the long-term CR that Democrats
plan to pass will fund agencies at their FY2006
levels, which is different from the previous CRs
that funded agencies at the lowest of the
House-passed, Senate-passed or FY2006 spending
levels. Democratic leaders also have indicated
that they will make “limited adjustments,”
allowing appropriators to provide more funding
for priorities such as health, education and
veterans’ medical care.
When announcing their decision to craft a
long-term CR, Democratic leaders expressed
concern that their agenda would be sacrificed if
they agreed to devote weeks to passing
the unfinished bills. In addition, incoming
Senate and House Appropriations Chairmen,
Robert Byrd (D-WV) and David Obey (D-WI),
indicated that they would rather concentrate on
the first budget under their party’s leadership
while giving close scrutiny
to the president’s own spending plan and his
request for additional spending for the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
NIH
If the Democratic plan for a long-term CR is
adopted, NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs)
would be funded at their FY2006 funding levels.
This arrangement actually would
benefit the ICs (albeit in a small way) when
compared to if Congress had decided to use
either the President’s FY2007 budget or House
FY2007 budget to determine NIH funding
in FY2007. This is because both the President
and House proposed to cut every IC except for
NIAID in FY2007 in order to provide additional
funds for NIH Roadmap
activities and biodefense measures. Therefore,
if NIH is funded at the FY2006 level,
funding for NIH Roadmap activities and
biodefense measures would not receive the
increases that had been proposed in FY2007.
NSF & DOE
NSF and DOE’s Office of Science, under the
Democrats long-term CR, would be especially
affected because both were slated to receive
significant increases in FY2007. Both the House
and Senate are backing the President’s
“innovation agenda” and have recommended that
NSF receive $6.0 billion in FY2007, which would
represent a 7.9 percent increase over FY2006,
while DOE’s Office of Science was on track to
receive $4.1 billion, which would represent a
14.1 percent increase over FY2006. However, as a
result of the support expressed for these
programs throughout 2006, both agencies may very
likely be included in the list of priority
programs for FY2007. In fact, when incoming
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (DCA) met with
President Bush after the elections, and in an
apparent effort to demonstrate goodwill, Ms.
Pelosi indicated that Democrats would take up
the “President’s Competitiveness Initiative”
laid out by President Bush in his State of the
Union address last January and pass his proposal
to increase funding for basic research in the
physical sciences and alternative energy
programs.
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NIH REAUTHORIZATION BILL
PASSES
The 109th Congress may have passed more
legislation in its last day than throughout all
of 2006. One of the many measures that passed
included the National Institutes of Health
Reform Act of 2006 (HR
6164), which authorizes significant
funding increases for NIH in FY2007 – FY2009,
sets up a “common fund” for trans NIH-research
involving more
than one Institute or Center (IC) and expands
reporting requirements. The bill also
creates the Division of Program Coordination,
Planning, and Strategic Initiatives, calls
for the establishment of a Scientific Management
Review Board to review the structure
of NIH every seven years and authorizes the NIH
Director to award grants for
demonstration projects for research bridging the
biological sciences with the physical,
chemical, mathematical, and computational
sciences. In addition, the Director is
authorized to establish demonstration programs
that award grants, contracts, or engage in other
transactions, for high-impact, cutting-edge
research demonstration programs. FASEB
applauded passage of the NIH Reform Act.
Chairman Barton’s Visit to FASEB
The principal sponsor of the legislation, House
Energy and Commerce Committee
Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX), attended FASEB’s
Board Meeting on Monday, December
4th. During the meeting Chairman Barton thanked
FASEB for its support and assistance
in helping to craft the bill that passed the
House 414-2 and informed us that he was
working with the Senate to ensure that the NIH
Reauthorization bill would pass before Congress
adjourned.
During his talk at FASEB, Chairman Barton
specifically cited FASEB’s letter that
summarized why science should not be supported
through disease-specific mandates. During House
debate on the NIH Reauthorization bill,
Representative Michael Burgess (R-TX) read a
portion of FASEB’s letter to respond to
Representative Lois Capps’ (D-CA) effort to set
aside NIH dollars to establish research centers
to investigate the link between cancer and the
environment. Of note, in
response to Representative Capps’ comment,
Representative Burgess stated, “I would like to
quote Leo T. Furcht, President of the Federation
of American Societies for Experimental Biology,’
who provided a letter stating, ‘We thank you for
your leadership in protecting NIH from
disease-specific funding set asides. From the
FASEB perspective, directed research initiatives
fail to recognize several principles inherent to
the nature of medical research. Basic research,
recognized universally as the foundation of most
advances in disease-specific research, will
inevitably suffer in a politically based system
of allocating scarce dollars. Thus, we doubly
appreciate your legislation’s emphasis on
investigator-initiated competitive research.”
Because of this letter, the FASEB President was
interviewed on
National Public Radio.
Chairman Joe Barton speaks to the FASEB Board
at their semi-annual meeting.
The NIH Reform Act has been a top priority for
Chairman Barton all year, and his
persistence clearly is the number one reason the
bill passed. Chairman Barton
refused to allow the House to pass several
significant pieces of legislation, including the
Ryan White CARE Act, which funds state-level
treatment of people with HIV and AIDS,
and a bioterrorism bill, until the Senate agreed
to pass the NIH Reauthorization bill. Once
the bill passed, Chairman Barton stated that he
regarded the legislation as the single most
important achievement by the House Energy and
Commerce Committee this year.
During negotiations with the Senate, Chairman
Barton agreed to compromise on many
aspects of the bill, including:
1) Increasing the authorization levels for NIH
from 2007-2009. The House-passed bill
authorization levels were revised (from 5%
annual increases) to provide for a 6.7%
increase (to $30.3 billion) in FY2007, an 8.3%
increase (to $32.8 billion) in FY2008 and
“such sums as necessary” for FY2009.
2) The formula used to appropriate to the Common
Fund. The revised bill eliminated the
50/50 formula for appropriating to the Common
Fund (where 50% of all new NIH dollars
would have been directed to the Common Fund
until it reached 5% of NIH’s total
budget). The revised bill authorizes the Common
Fund, but allows appropriators the
latitude to provide for its funding and sets no
dollar requirement (except that it cannot be
funded at less than what was provided in the
previous year).
3) The procedure for approving structural
changes at NIH. The House-passed bill would
have allowed NIH to notify Congress if it
proposed (through actions recommended by the
Scientific Management Review Board) to eliminate
or consolidate ICs. The revised bill
now provides Congress with the authority to
approve any such structural changes
recommended by the NIH Committee charged with
reviewing its organization.
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INSIDE (The Beltway) SCOOP
- Jon Retzlaff, Legislative Director
When Democratic appropriations chairmen David
Obey (D-WI) and Robert Byrd (D-WV)
announced that they would keep most government
agencies operating under their FY2006 budgets
until next fall, it seemed to eliminate any
chance of halting the erosion in NIH’s budget
that has been occurring since 2003. However, the
Democratic leaders may have provided an opening
when they also said that the final FY2007
spending bills would not include any
congressional earmarks, the targeted
appropriations for special projects in members’
home districts. The savings generated from these
earmarks is expected to be in the range of $8
billion. In fact, just within the Labor-HHS-Education
appropriations bill, approximately $1 billion is
currently reserved for earmarks.
The announcement that additional dollars will be
freed up by not funding
earmarks, coupled with the statement that
Democrats intend to “make limited adjustments to
address the nation’s most important policy
concerns,” actually provide us with an
opportunity to make a case for increasing the
life-saving research supported by NIH, as well
as the vitally important research supported by
NSF, DOE, VA, and USDA. FASEB plans to work with
the broader research community to convince
legislators that NIH should be on the short list
to receive additional funds beyond what it
received in FY2006. We currently are trying to
determine the most appropriate targets for our
message, as well as timing considerations.
In addition, passage of the NIH Reauthorization
bill may provide us with some
momentum as we will be able to urge Congress to
support the authorization level
specified for NIH in FY2007 ($30.3 billion).
Congress overwhelmingly supported the
bill that recommends significant increases for
NIH. FASEB, as well as the entire
scientific community intends to remind Congress
that flat funding NIH in FY2007 would
set the agency back almost 7% from the levels
recommended in the NIH Reauthorization
bill, and in effect, continue an erosion in
NIH’s budget that is occurring at a time when
opportunities for scientific progress and
advances in human health have never been
greater.
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