President vetoes NIH budget
Nov. 16, 2007
The proposed NIH budget represented one of seven appropriations bills both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives had approved. The U.S. House of Representatives has already approved all 12 of its appropriations bills.
The 3.6% increase was regarded as a victory for NIH, but was instantly recognized as putting the bill in danger of a presidential veto. Because much of the increase would go to a larger transfer to the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS and increased funding for the NIH Common Fund, most NIH institutes and centers (ICs) would see their budgets increase between 2.4% and 2.8%, matching economy-wide inflation but falling well short of projected biomedical research inflation.
The president’s veto of the proposed NIH budget derails a funding plan that would have had the following effects:
• NIH R&D spending, 97% of the total NIH budget except for some training and overhead costs, would increase 3.6 percent or $1.0 billion to $29.4 billion.
• The Office of the Director (OD) budget would climb to $1.1 billion in 2008 to centralize NIH Common Fund (Roadmap) dollars. The Common Fund would total $531 million in 2008, up 10 percent.
• Because an unusually large number of existing research grants would end, NIH expects to offer more than 10,000 new research grants in 2008 for the first time since 2004, and the conference appropriation would allow NIH to give inflationary adjustments for existing grants and new grants.
• In a legislative provision attached to the appropriation, Congress would require NIH grantees to make their published research papers freely accessible within a year of publication.
• Total Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) R&D would be $30.9 billion in the latest congressional plan, an increase of $1.2 billion or 4.1%. Although NIH dominates the HHS portfolio, there would be increases for most other HHS agencies, including an 83% increase for R&D in the Office of the Secretary to $201 million, primarily for R&D on biodefense countermeasures.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the largest R&D funding agency supported by the Labor-HHS bill, and is the second-largest supporter of R&D in the federal government, after the Department of Defense. In its mission to promote biomedical research and other fundamental inquiries that may lead to medical advances, it is by far the largest federal supporter of basic research, applied research, and R&D at colleges and universities, and has a significant impact on support for the biomedical life sciences.
SOURCE: American Association for the Advancement of Science
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