"Here Comes the Sun" for Research Funding - "Freeze" Gone

Capitol Hill is buzzing with news of the unexpected victory of the House and Senate Appropriations leadership to negotiate some targeted spending increases for Fiscal Year 2007, which began October 1, 2006. Most federal agencies have been funded at 2006 levels since October under a continuing resolution (CR). Today, the House will vote on the rule and a joint resolution to make final FY07 funding decisions, and the news looks much brighter than even a week ago.

Recall that the President's FY07 budget proposed an almost $5 billion cut for programs under the jurisdiction of the Labor, HHS, Education appropriations bill. Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Ranking Appropriations Member Arlen Specter (R-PA) (whose positions were reversed before the Democrats won the Senate in the 2006 elections) have continued to work diligently to restore these funds ever since the appropriations bills were first drafted last spring. Along with colleagues, including House members Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Mike Castle (R-DE), they were able to add the additional funds needed to bring those programs back to the FY05 level - an increase of $7 billion over the President's budget. This new spending resolution for FY07 includes the funding level requested by Senators Harkin and Specter - a full $2.3 billion above the 2006 continuing resolution level and $7 billon above the President's FY07 budget.

The bill would appropriate $28.9 billion for the National Institutes of Health, an increase of $619.5 million, to reverse a projected decline in new NIH research project awards and support an additional 500 research project grants, 1,500 first time investigators, and expand funding for high-risk and high-impact research. The resolution also includes $69 million for the National Children's Study. There is no word yet on whether the increase would make it possible for NIH to restore inflation increases to continuing grants.

The National Science Foundation, which had been slated to receive a 7 percent increase before being temporarily flat-funded in the continuing resolution, would receive $4.7 billion, an increase of $335 million in the Foundation's research and related activities account, to fund Innovation Programs. This increase is a down-payment towards funding the "Global Competitiveness Initiative," an increased investment in basic physical and mathematical sciences, which looks to have solid support in the new Congress, as well as the last one, in which GCI was initiated.

Among additional programs that received high priority status for spending increases, the joint resolution will provide $32.3 billion for Veterans Healthcare, an increase of $3.6 billion above the 2006 funding level, to provide for an anticipated increase of at least 325,000 patients and to meet rising healthcare costs. In the Department of Education, the Pell Grants program would receive $13.6 billion, an increase of $615.4 million, to increase the maximum Pell grant by $260 to $4,310. According to the House Appropriations summary, this increase - the first in four years - will help over 5.3 million students pay rising college expenses.

Watch SPIN for more news about research funding in the current and next fiscal year.

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