Senate Marks Up Supplemental that Includes Funds
for Science
Yesterday, although the House failed to pass its
$162.5 billion fiscal year (FY2008) emergency
supplemental appropriations bill, the Senate
Appropriations Committee approved its $193
billion version of the FY2008 bill. Whereas the House version of the supplemental neither included science funding nor exceeded the President’s $180 billion request, the Senate bill contains about $10 billion in domestic funding over the President’s request.
Of the $10 billion in discretionary funding in
its bill, the Senate Appropriations Committee
directed $1.2 billion toward its “Science
Initiative.” According to the Senate
Appropriations Committee’s
press release, “to help promote long-term
economic development, the Committee is
recommending a total of $1.2 billion for
programs under the jurisdiction of the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration, the
National Science Foundation, the National
Institutes of Health and the Department of
Energy.”
The Senate Appropriations Committee also
included $275 million in the supplemental for
the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), “including
$125 million for food safety activities, and
$100 million for medical product and drug safety
activities.” According to a
press release from Senator Herb Kohl’s
(D-WI) Office, the bill would also provide “$40
million… for modernizing FDA science and the FDA
workforce; and $10 million… to upgrade FDA
facilities and laboratories outside of
Washington, DC, which are currently below public
safety standards and incapable of performing
agency requirements.”
The Senate plans to send the bill to the floor
for a vote next week before members leave for
their Memorial Day recess on May 26th.
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
The Senate markup of the FY 2008 emergency supplemental appropriations bill
includes $400 million for NIH. According to Senator Harkin (D-IA), the Chair of
the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies
Appropriations Subcommittee in his May 7th
press release, “the
$400 million in funding in [the] package would be sufficient to fund
approximately 700 additional research grants in FY2008.” FASEB President Robert
Palazzo, Ph.D. sent a
thank you letter to
Harkin for the inclusion of additional funds for NIH in FY2008.
Additionally, Dr. Palazzo sent
letters on behalf of FASEB to every member
of the Senate Appropriations Committee prior to
the May 15th markup, urging them to support the
inclusion of funding for NIH in the FY2008
supplemental appropriations bill. Finally, after
the Senate Appropriations Committee marked up
the bill, Dr. Palazzo sent
letters to every member of the Senate to
request that they vote for the emergency
supplemental bill with NIH funding therein when
it makes it to the Senate floor as early as next
week.
FASEB has also issued a
press
release praising the Senate Appropriations
Committee for including NIH funding in the
supplemental and has sent an
alert to its society members, asking them to
send letters to their Senators to request their support for funding for NIH and the National
Science Foundation in the supplemental
appropriations bill on the floor of the Senate
next week.
National Science Foundation (NSF)
The FY2008 supplemental appropriations bill
provides $200 million each to NSF and to the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
both of which fall under the Senate Commerce,
Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS)
Appropriations Subcommittee. In terms of the
money for NSF, the Appropriations Committee
allocated $150 million for basic research
activities and $50 million for science and math
education programs, which include teacher
training and graduate fellowships.
In her May 8th
press release, Senator Mikulski (D-MD), the
Chair of the Senate CJS Appropriations
Subcommittee provided, with regard to funding
for NSF, that she “understands the importance of
investments in basic research and science
education… [and that] the $150 million for NSF
[would] support approximately 500 additional
research grants in the basic sciences.” Senator
Mikulski characterized “investments in basic
research [as] critically important to the
long-term competitiveness of the U.S. economy
[inasmuch as they create] new technologies, new
industries and higher paying jobs.” She further
stated that the $50 million in scholarship
funding for NSF “would support approximately
1,650 scholarships and fellowships at the
undergraduate and graduate level, in order to
educate and energize our future scientists and
engineers.”
FASEB has issued a press
release praising the Senate Appropriations
Committee for including NSF funding in the supplemental and has sent an
alert to its society members, asking them to send letters to their Senators
to request their support for funding for NIH and NSF in the supplemental
appropriations bill on the floor of the Senate next week.
Department of Energy (DOE)
The FY2008 supplemental appropriations bill
provides $400 million for DOE though only $100
million of that amount is for DOE’s Office of
Science in accordance with the American
Competitiveness
Initiative; the other $300 million is for
environmental management or cleanup. Of the $100
million for DOE’s Office of Science, $50 million
is for nuclear fusion, or ITER, which is a joint
international research and development project
to which the U.S. is a party in France that aims
to demonstrate the scientific and technical
feasibility of fusion power.
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Farm Bill Passes Without Language Harmful to
Animal Research, Creates New Research Institute
The advocacy efforts of FASEB and the
research community were apparent in the final
Farm Bill, which passed both the House and the
Senate this week. Legislators removed language
eliminating the use of non-purpose bred dogs and
cats purchased from Class B dealers, which could
have disrupted ongoing research studies, from
the final bill. For the past three years, FASEB
and its member societies had
opposed inclusion of the prohibition,
supporting instead a measure in last year’s
National Institutes of Health appropriations
bill that commissions a study by the National
Academies of Science to examine the use of
non-purpose bred dogs and cats in research. The
conference report of the Farm Bill, in which
Congress expands on its intent and motivation
for the legislation, directs the United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) to report the
results of this study to Congress upon its
completion. In a thank you letter to Senator
Harkin, who is one of the Farm Bill conference
managers, FASEB President Robert Palazzo, Ph.D.,
affirmed the essential contribution of animals
in research and supported the study, stating “we
believe it may be appropriate to periodically
reassess the scientific need for particular
species or to ensure that animal welfare
standards are in accordance with the latest
scientific understanding about the needs of an
animal species.” Many FASEB society scientists
took action on this issue, contacting their
legislators or sharing stories of their own
research programs involving Class B animals, and
clearly, it made a difference.
The final Farm Bill also contained
significant changes to the agricultural research
programs of the USDA, many of which were in line
with FASEB’s
initial recommendations for the Farm Bill.
The legislation creates a National Institute of
Food and Agriculture (NIFA), which would replace
the current Cooperative State Research,
Education and Extension Service. The head of
NIFA will be a “distinguished scientist,”
reporting to the USDA Secretary, and NIFA will
serve as the home of the competitive extramural
research program at USDA, which is now the
Agriculture and Food Research Initiative
(formerly the National Research Initiative or
NRI). The conference report placed a great deal
of emphasis on the importance of fundamental
research, stating “The Managers intend for NIFA
to be an independent, scientific, policy-setting
agency for the food and agricultural sciences,
which will reinvigorate our nation’s investment
in agricultural research, extension, and
education… In particular, the Managers intend
that the Director place emphasis on fundamental
research because this type of research is the
engine and cornerstone for all other types of
research.” There was also a great deal of
language in the bill and conference report that aims
to coordinate the extramural and intramural
(which the Agricultural Research Service
encompasses) research programs of the USDA,
another of FASEB’s recommendations.
Unfortunately, the bill did not contain any
additional money for research, remaining
essentially at the previously authorization
levels. However, the USDA research programs have
never come close to their authorization levels
of funding in terms of actual appropriations, so
the Farm Bill still leaves plenty of room for
growth.
President Bush has vowed to veto the Farm
Bill, primarily because of overall levels of
spending in the package. However, the House
passed the legislation by a vote of 318-106, and
the Senate followed rapidly with a vote of
81-15, both of which are substantially
veto-proof margins. The final Farm Bill and
conference report, as well as summaries of the
various sections, are available
here.
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House Holds Hearing on Stem Cell Research
A hearing that the House Committee on Energy and
Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health held on “Stem
Cell Science: The Foundation for Future Cures,”
proved to be popular among members of Congress,
with more than a dozen in attendance to hear
testimony on the current status of stem cell
research. Witnesses included National Institutes
of Health (NIH) Director Elias Zerhouni, M.D.,
embryonic stem cell scientists George Daley,
M.D., Ph.D., and John Gearhardt, Ph.D., and
adult stem cell researchers and patient
advocates. The House held the hearing at the
request of Representative Diana DeGette (D-CO),
who announced plans to introduce new legislation
with Representative Mike Castle (R-DE) that
would not only expand the number of human
embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines available for
federal funding but would also “construct a
framework for ethical oversight” for all cell
research. A similar DeGette-Castle bill has
passed both houses of Congress multiple times
but has been unable to garner sufficient votes
to override a Presidential veto.
Topics at the hearing ranged from details about
the state of the science to current NIH funding
levels of stem cell research to the feasibility
of NIH serving as a regulatory body to ensure
ethical oversight of stem cell research.
Comments from the Members present generally fell
along partisan lines, with the Democrats on the
Subcommittee supporting all types of stem cell
research, including embryonic, and the
Republican members emphasizing the importance of
adult stem cell research and the newer induced
pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Dr. Zerhouni
testified that from the scientific standpoint,
hESC, adult stem cell, and iPS cell research,
are all “faces of the same coin.” In response to
questions about the clinical merit of adult
versus embryonic stem cells, Zerhouni pointed
out that there is an average of 17 years between
a basic science idea and clinical trials and
that hESC technologies are far younger than
their adult stem cell counterparts. He later
added, “If we had more resources, we could
accelerate the research…” The scientists who
testified echoed these points and discussed the
current clinical application of adult stem
cells.
Although no further details of the upcoming
DeGette-Castle legislation were forthcoming,
there were a number of questions about the
current lack of regulatory framework for ethical
oversight of stem cell research. Dr. Zerhouni
enthusiastically supported the enactment of
“harmonized and cohesive oversight” that would
apply to all stem cell research in the U.S.,
stating “I wish common ground could be found…”
and underscored his belief that NIH is the
entity best able to administer such a system.
Witness statements and a webcast of the hearing
are available
here.
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Senate Convenes Hearing on Alzheimer’s,
Emphasizing Need for Research Funding
The need for research funding at the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National
Science Foundation (NSF) took center stage at a
hearing of the Senate Special Committee on
Aging, which focused on Alzheimer’s disease and
counted former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich
and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
among its witnesses. Both Gingrich and O’Connor, who are members of a
taskforce of national leaders called the
Alzheimer’s Study Group, emphasized multiple
times the need for more and better coordination
of fundamental and clinical research at NIH.
“For every dollar the Federal government now
spends through Medicare and Medicaid to care for
those with Alzheimer’s,” Gingrich testified, “it
invests less than a penny to accelerate the
discovery and development of effective therapies
through the work of NIH and FDA.” Rudi Tanzi,
Ph.D., a neuroscientist and geneticist from
Harvard University, underscored the need for
research funding, describing his research that
NIH has funded on early-onset Alzheimer’s genes.
In response to a question from Senator Ken
Salazar (D-CO) regarding current strategies for
addressing the disease, Justice O’Connor, who is
the caregiver for her husband who suffers from
Alzheimer’s, immediately recommended putting
more resources into research, particularly
translational and clinical research. When
Senator Salazar tried to dismiss this as a
long-term rather than a short-term solution,
Gingrich rebutted him by asserted that we are on
the verge of breakthroughs that merit immediate
investment. Gingrich also strongly endorsed the
role of NSF, stating that Congress should not
“underestimate the importance of NSF” in finding
a cure for Alzheimer’s. He went on to describe
the development of scanning technology and
future prospects for nanotechnologies and
innovations in the physical sciences that would
underlie the biomedical research advances in
Alzheimer’s disease. For copies of witness
statements and a link to the webcast, please
click
here.
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