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The House Appropriations Labor-HHS Subcommittee
heard testimony this week from HHS Secretary
Michael Leavitt on FY2009 funding for the
Department, including NIH. The vast majority of
the Secretary's testimony concerned mandatory
programs (e.g., Medicare and Medicaid) and only
briefly mentioned biomedical research.
Leavitt’s
written testimony provided that the budget has
“proposed [an] increase for each Institute and
Center at NIH.” Leavitt’s
written testimony further stated that the
“overall budget will support 38,000 research
project grants, including more than 9,700 new
and competing awards.
Overall,
the NIH budget will be the same as [it was in]
FY2008.” Not
surprisingly, this is essentially the same
statement he made after the release of the
President's budget.
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House Science Committee Hearing on Funding for the ACI in the FY2009 Administration Budget Request
On February 14th,
the House Science Committee held a hearing to
examine funding for the America COMPETES Act in
the FY2009 Administration Budget Request.
Dr. John Marburger, the Director of the
Office of Science and Technology, testified.
House Science Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN)
hammered Dr. Marburger for the lack of funding
for NSF’s math and science training programs in
the President's proposal.
Gordon’s primary criticism of the
President’s FY2009 request is that it would only
provide 10 percent of the money NSF said it
needs in that area, given statistics that show
the
U.S.
is falling behind other countries in math and
science education.
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FASEB Joins Call for Presidential Debate on Science
As part of an ongoing effort
to encourage the Presidential candidates to
articulate their views on biomedical research
issues, FASEB has joined
Science Debate 2008, a coalition of
scientists and concerned citizens calling for
the candidates to participate in a debate that
focuses on science.
FASEB
joins the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS), Research!America and over 100 universities,
scientific societies and other organizations in
endorsing the initiative.
The group
has set a date for the event (April 18th)
and has invited the candidates.
As
primary season continues, FASEB is hopeful that
the candidates will set aside time to address
one of the most important issues facing our
nation. FASEB
plans to submit questions and topics to the
debate organizers.
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Senators Bingaman and Coleman Reintroduce ACTION Act on Visa Issues
Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Norm Coleman
(R-MN) have updated and introduced a new version
of their bill, the American Competitiveness
through International Openness Now (ACTION) Act,
which concerns travel by foreign scholars,
students, scientists and business people in the
context of U.S.
competitiveness.
FASEB thanked Senators Coleman and
Bingaman for the ACTION Act after they
introduced the prior version in the 109th
Congress:
http://opa.faseb.org/pdf/ColemanACTIONletterFINAL.pdf.
While some of the provisions
extend beyond the scope of FASEB’s interests and
concern immigration, business travelers, etc.,
there are a number of provisions that are
consistent with our previous visa policy
recommendations from
2004 and
2005.
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FASEB Participates in NSABB Roundtable on Dual Use Research
As
part of the tri-annual meeting of the National
Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity (NSABB),
FASEB’s Director of Scientific Affairs and
Public Relations, Carrie Wolinetz, participated
in a roundtable discussion on outreach to the
scientific community as it relates to dual use
research issues.
NSABB is the federal body responsible for
oversight of biological dual use research, which
is benevolent science that has the potential of
misuse for harmful purposes.
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Spotlight on Training and Young Investigators
With the dawn of a new budget
cycle, efforts to improve peer review underway,
and increasing concern about the well-being of
the scientific workforce, the last several
months have been significant for trainees and
young investigators in the biomedical sciences.
Most recently, NIH’s
working group on peer review recommended
that the agency increase R01 support for early
career scientists, take into account
institutional commitment to these investigators
when evaluating their applications, and consider
reviewing these applications independently and
ranking them against each other.
With the goal of providing stable career
support for young researchers, the working group
also urged NIH to evaluate the total number of
graduate students, postdocs, and “soft money”
researchers it funds.
These recommendations come at a time of
heightened attention to the availability of
scientific workforce data, and they follow a
recent
Congressional mandate that NIH report on the graduate students and postdocs
it supports.
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CONGRESSIONAL SCHEDULE
The House and Senate are in session.
More Details >
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