HHS Secretary Leavitt Testifies Before House Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee
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.
Chairman David Obey (D-WI) mentioned NIH a
number of times during his opening and
closing remarks and criticized the
President's budget for “freezing biomedical
sciences.” Congressman
Obey said that although Congress has
considered the expense of “adding more money
to NIH, to student aid [and] to SCHIP,” it
has spent very little time discussing the
cost of failing to adequately fund these
programs. Representative
Obey also took Leavitt to task for cutting
grants and said that no constituents ever
came into his office to request cuts in
cancer funding.
The Secretary responded that not all
research projects proved successful after
three to four years, a point that Obey
dismissed, citing decreasing success rates
and calling this an example of differing
priorities between the Administration and
Congress.
Ranking Member Jim Walsh (R-NY) also
alluded to NIH in his statement and bemoaned
the fact that mandatory programs and defense
spending are “putting a burden on
[Congress’] ability to meet the needs of the
country through discretionary means,”
including medical research.
Secretary
Leavitt planned to present similar testimony
to other congressional committees on both
the House and Senate sides, which included
his testimony later this week before the
House Budget and the House Energy and
Commerce Committees.
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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.
Dr. Marburger’s response was that the
Department of Education rather than NSF is
primarily responsible for education and that the
“international rankings are difficult to
interpret.”
When Members of the Committee asked Dr.
Marburger what the science agencies were doing
to encourage young people to participate, Dr.
Marburger wasn’t able to provide any concrete
examples.
Representative Judy Biggert
(R-IL) voiced the Committee’s concern about the
number of scientists who are leaving the
U.S.
and going to other countries to perform their
research, and Representative Vern Ehlers (R-MI)
attributed China
and
India’s recent
success in science to: 1) their adoption of the
free-enterprise system; and 2) their institution
of math and science education programs.
Representative Ehlers wondered why the
Administration’s FY2009 proposal for NSF and DOE
wasn’t as high at the American Competitiveness
Initiative (ACI)’s FY2009 numbers for those
agencies and wondered whether the Administration
had based its recommendation for FY2009 on
FY2008’s faulty result.
Dr.
Marburger responded that the President’s FY2009
proposal would provide significant funding
increases over FY2008 for NSF and DOE.
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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.
FASEB signed on to support
the grassroots initiative in conjunction with
its ongoing voter engagement campaign,
Science Cures.
ScienceCures.org
is a web-based resource and action center that
enables voters to advocate for research and
educate candidates about the importance of
investing in the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) and other federal science agencies.
Already, it appears that
the campaigns have noticed the groundswell of
public support asking them to address science,
technology and research.
Representatives
from the Clinton and Obama campaigns met at the
AAAS annual meeting to discuss science issues,
and both campaigns made strong statements in
support of federal funding for basic
scientific research.
(Senator
McCain sent regrets, while the Paul and Huckabee
campaigns did not respond to the invitation).
FASEB society members and
supporters who want to do more can
contact the candidates though the Science
Cures
action center and encourage them to accept
the debate invitation.
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