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SENATE FY2007 L/HHS
APPROPRIATIONS - SUBCOMMITTEE AND FULL COMMITTEE
MARKUPS
L/HHS Appropriations Bill (NIH) –
Subcommittee and Full Committee Mark-ups:
On July 18, 2006, the Senate Labor, Health and
Human Services and Education (L/HHS)
Appropriations Subcommittee marked-up its FY2007
bill. The bill would provide NIH with $28.459
billion in FY2007, an increase of $220 million,
which is less than a one-percent increase
[.78%], over its FY2006 appropriation. You may
remember that both the Administration’s budget
and House L/HHS Appropriations bill would
essentially flat-fund NIH in FY2007.
Two days later, the Senate Appropriations
Committee approved the L/HHS bill to provide
$28.459 billion for NIH in FY2007. Chairman
Arlen Specter (R-PA) was clearly frustrated and
disappointed that he was unable to provide
additional funding for many important programs,
including NIH. He said that his subcommittee was
working with an inadequate allocation,
specifically $10.4 billion below the amount
allocated to his subcommittee in FY2005. He also
mentioned that NIH’s budget is $3.7 billion
below its FY2005 funding level, when accounting
for inflation, and stated that there has been a
“disintegration of the appropriate federal role
in health and education programs.”
Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) agreed with
Senator Specter’s assessment and concern
regarding the declining federal role in
supporting important health and education
programs. Incidentally, Senator Durbin has been
identified by FASEB’s Grass Roots subcommittee
as a future champion for NIH research.
Ranking Member Tom Harkin (D-IA) reiterated the
need for an additional $2 billion dollars for
key health and education programs. You may
remember that during the Senate debate on its
budget resolution, Senators Specter and Harkin
were successful in
convincing seventy-one other Senators to support
their amendment to add $7.1 billion for
important health and education programs. Senate
Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran (R-MS) did
take an important step toward this goal when he
provided the L/HHS Subcommittee with an
additional $5 billion (of the $7 billion being
sought) during the appropriations allocation
process.
Senator Harkin vowed to take this issue up again
once the L/HHS appropriations bill is brought to
the Senate floor for debate. He intends to ask
those seventy-one Senators to support the extra
$2 billion that’s still missing from the L/HHS
bill. However, the chances of the L/HHS reaching
the Senate floor for debate before the November
elections are very low.
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HOUSE FY2007 L/HHS APPROPRIATIONS
Status of L/HHS Appropriations Bill (NIH)
:
It is looking increasingly likely that the House
Leadership will accede to the demands from
Democrats and moderate Republicans to allow a
vote on increasing the minimum wage. If
this occurs, it would provide an opening to move
the House L/HHS Appropriations Bill to the floor
for a vote. In fact, there will be pressure to
bring up the bill for debate since the House has
already passed ten of its eleven spending bills,
with the L/HHS bill the lone exception. However,
House leaders may be reluctant to bring the bill
forward because of fears they may not have the
votes to pass it, especially when key programs
such as NIH are not receiving any increase in
FY2007. In fact, the moderate Republican Members
continue to express strong reservations about
voting for a bill that does not adequately fund
important health and education programs,
particularly in an election year.
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INSIDE (The Beltway) SCOOP
- Jon Retzlaff, Legislative Director
We’ll need to constantly continue to deliver the
message, but there are signs that Congress is
beginning to understand the consequences
associated with flat-funding the pre-eminent
biomedical research institution in the world.
FASEB and other biomedical research advocates
met with House Majority Leader John Boehner
(R-OH) this week (see full story under
“Congressional Meetings”). During the first half
of the meeting, Boehner was clearly skeptical of
our groups’ claims that there’s been a downturn
in NIH funding. He stated that he has not seen a
decrease since arriving in Washington and
stated, “NIH has grown from $10 billion to $28
billion, which is a huge increase.” Former House
L/HHS Subcommittee Chairman John Porter agreed
with Majority Leader Boehner’s observation that
NIH has received generous increases, but
remarked that tremendous progress has occurred
because of that investment, and we have reached
a point where the scientific opportunities have
never been greater. Chairman Porter also spoke
about how we are beginning to lose the momentum
of scientific progress, and talked of how young
investigators are being especially affected. Bob
Palazzo, Ph.D., FASEB’s President-Elect and
Howard Garrison, Ph.D., FASEB’s Director of
Public Affairs, recently published an
article addressing this issue in The FASEB
Journal titled, “What’s happening to the new
investigator?”
These points prompted Mr. Boehner to ask what
would be required to maintain a steady funding
stream for NIH. Chairman Porter explained that a
3.5% increase is needed just to sustain the
investment in NIH. Mr. Boehner appreciated the
group’s message, and said that he agreed that it
makes a lot of sense to put NIH on a path to
sustainability.
Another example of Congress showing interest and
support for medical research occurred during the
Senate Appropriations Committee’s mark-up of the
Defense bill. Three-fourths of the discussion
involved medical research. While Defense
Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK)
complained about the migration of medical
research to the defense bill, it illustrated
that many Members of Congress believe that the
L/HHS bill did not receive an adequate
allocation to fund NIH at an appropriate level.
In fact, Senator Stevens mentioned that $3
billion had been requested by Members for
medical research during the subcommittee’s
deliberations. For example, the Defense bill
includes funding for the following activities:
Provides $245 million for cancer research:
-
$150 million for the Breast Cancer
Research Program
-
$80 million for the Prostate Cancer
Research Program
-
$15 million for the Ovarian Cancer
Research Program
-
Provides $45 million for a medical
research fund
Senator Durbin even remarked that he and Senator
Barrack Obama (D-IL) would be willing to forfeit
their projects (earmarks) for Illinois if the
money would be directed towards research on
traumatic brain injury.
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NIH REAUTHORIZATION
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe
Barton (R-TX) is pleased that negotiations with
FASEB and the American Association of Medical
Colleges (AAMC) are progressing, and thus has
decided to hold off marking-up the NIH
reauthorization bill until early September.
However, he still plans to introduce the bill
before the House adjourns for its summer recess
on July 28, 2006. We expect to receive a
discussion draft of the legislation sometime
today.
FASEB, AAMC and the American Association of
Universities (AAU) plan to submit a joint letter
to Chairman Barton thanking him for his efforts
and identifying areas of concern within the
bill. In addition, should the bill be introduced
before the August recess, FASEB will co-host a
town-hall meeting with AAMC to bring together
the broader research and patient group community
to discuss the bill and attempt to gain
consensus on many of its key ideas.
On Thursday, July 13th, Leo Furcht, M.D.,
FASEB’s President, Robert Palazzo, Ph.D.,
FASEB’s President-Elect and Jon Retzlaff,
FASEB’s Director of Legislative Relations, met
with Cheryl Jaeger and Katherine Martin, House
Energy and Commerce Committee professional
staff, regarding Chairman Barton’s plans to
reauthorize NIH.
Drs. Furcht and Palazzo reiterated FASEB’s
concerns about the common fund (within the
Office of the Director) growing while the
overall NIH budget remains stagnant, expressed
our support for the investigator-initiated
research grant mechanisms to identify and fund
research priorities, and conveyed our
apprehension about linking the yearly IC budget
increases to the level of collaboration
occurring among ICs.
The large increase in the common fund is
especially concerning when you consider how it
might affect the rest of the NIH IC budgets. For
example, if NIH were to receive a five percent
increase in FY2007, and Chairman Barton’s
proposal to increase the common fund to five
percent of NIH’s budget in FY2007 is adopted, it
would mean that the common fund would receive
82% of NIH’s total annual increase in FY2007.
Another way to think about this: a program that
is currently 1.5% of NIH’s budget would receive
82% of the NIH total annual increase in FY2007.
The other 98.5% of NIH’s budget would receive
28% of the NIH total annual increase in FY2007.
This is similar in some ways to the common
argument that the top 5% of the richest U.S.
citizens receive 95% of the tax cut benefits.
Fortunately, Chairman Barton’s staff has been
very willing to meet with us and listen to our
feedback. They seem to understand and appreciate
our concerns about increasing the common fund
when the overall IC budgets are not increasing.
The staff was also interested in protecting
investigator-initiated research. In addition,
they appeared to understand that there could be
unintended consequences associated with
rewarding ICs for pursuing trans-NIH research
activities, and agreed that it may be difficult
to accurately measure the effectiveness of such
activities.
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