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in this issue...
 Economic Stimulus Legislation Advances in Congress—Includes Research Funds
Psychologist in Congress Takes Helm at Energy Subcommittee
Next Friends of NIDA Briefing to Focus on Criminal Justice Portfolio
Coalition Meets with VA’s Chief Research and Development Officer
Psychological Science Informs Deployment of Healthcare Information Technology
Psychological Science Highlighted at NICHD Council
APA Well-Represented at NIDA Conference on Substance Abuse, Military and Veterans
Economic Stimulus Legislation Advances in Congress—Includes Research Funds
As this issue of SPIN goes to press, economic stimulus legislation is moving through the House of Representatives and the Senate. In the week ending January 23, 2009, the House Appropriations, Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce Committees held markups on portions of the stimulus legislation, called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. According to the House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the legislation is being crafted to quickly create jobs and boost the economy, while making investments to ensure a sustained recovery and a strong economy in the future. The legislation will come to the House Floor for a vote on Wednesday, January 28. The Senate is working on its version simultaneously.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) estimates that the House version of the 2009 stimulus appropriations bill contains $13.3 billion in federal research and development (R&D) funding out of a total $550 billion in federal spending. $9.9 billion would go to the conduct of R&D and $3.4 billion for R&D facilities and capital equipment. The inclusion of science funding in this package reflects advocacy efforts from many scientific and academic organizations, who argued successfully that scientific research creates jobs and moves toward solutions to complex and costly problems.
Within the stimulus package, $3.0 billion is slated for the National Science Foundation (NSF), with $2.5 billion of those funds targeted for Research and Related Activities, $400 million for Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction, and $100 million for Education and Human Resources Directorate programs. Since NSF is currently operating under the FY 2008 funding level of $6.0 billion, an addition of this size plus any forthcoming FY 2009 final appropriations could push the overall budget to $9 billion or more, far exceeding the annual increases authorized for FY 2009 in the America COMPETES Act of 2007.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) would receive $3.9 billion in the stimulus appropriations bill, divided about evenly between research and infrastructure (facilities’ maintenance and construction). The stimulus funding would reinvigorate an NIH budget that has failed to keep pace with inflation since 2004. $1.5 billion would be distributed proportionally among NIH’s institutes and centers through the Office of the Director to fund intramural and extramural research, divided equally between FY 2009 and FY 2010 funding of $750 million each year to enable NIH to award grants in FY 2009 and fund the second year of these grants in FY 2010. The intention is for NIH to distribute these funds through regular grant review cycles without sacrificing quality. Acting NIH Director Raynard Kington, MD, PhD, in testimony before the Senate in November, 2008, said that NIH study sections have approved 10,000 grants that could not be funded due to NIH’s flat budget. He also noted that grants have a multiplier effect, attracting additional investment from universities, foundations or the private sector of about 2.5 times the grant’s value. And on average, each NIH grant supports seven jobs.
The stimulus appropriations bill is heavily weighted toward infrastructure in an attempt to spend money as quickly as possible in ‘shovel-ready’ projects. According to the AAAS analysis, $3.4 billion of the $13.3 billion in R&D funding in the stimulus would go to R&D facilities and capital equipment, to pay for the repair, maintenance, and construction of scientific laboratories as well as large research equipment and instrumentation. “Considering that R&D facilities funding totaled $4.4 billion in FY 2008, half of which went to just one laboratory (the International Space Station), the $3.4 billion supplemental will be an enormous boost in the federal government’s spending on scientific facilities. $2.3 billion would go to extramural, competitively selected R&D facilities projects, nearly entirely at universities, through programs in NIH, NSF, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology that received no federal money in FY 2008, while another $400 million would go to NSF funding for major extramural construction projects selected through an existing process. In addition to $709 million in funding for federal lab improvements at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and NIH, the Department of Energy Office of Science will use a portion of its $2.0 billion appropriation on construction, maintenance, and repair at its national labs. And other agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are set to receive stimulus funding for construction and maintenance, which while not technically R&D facilities, funding will be used to renovate existing laboratories or construct new ones.”
The bill requires nearly all of the funding to be awarded within 120 days of when the President signs the bill into law. Most competitive research grants in continuing programs would need to be obligated within 90 days. The intention is for the money to be spent as quickly as possible to provide immediate economic stimulus. Nearly all of the funds are designated as FY 2009 money, with agencies allowed to obligate funds until the end of FY 2010, but the legislation includes ‘use it or lose it’ provisions to ensure that the funds are awarded, obligated, and spent as quickly as possible.
Watch future issues of SPIN or the Psychological Science Agenda for additional updates on the stimulus package and other research funding legislation. In the meantime, for more information see the AAAS analysis of the supplemental spending proposal.
Also: National Public Radio’s Science Friday for January 23 featured an interview with U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) who talked about the prominence of science in the economic stimulus legislation.
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Psychologist in Congress Takes Helm at Energy Subcommittee
The House Science Committee announced its new roster of Subcommittee Chairs and Members (which become official January 28 following a meeting of the full Committee), and psychologist Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) will give up his previous Chairmanship to take the helm at House Science’s Subcommittee on Energy and Environment. Prior to this move, Rep. Baird has been a very active Chair of the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, and in particular an important leader in highlighting the behavioral sciences’ critical role in addressing vital national challenges ranging from health care to national security and energy independence. Taking over the Chairmanship of the Research Subcommittee will be Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-IL), an engineer and former political science professor with experience both as a Member of the Subcommittee overseeing the National Science Foundation (NSF) and also as a previous NSF grantee. SGRO staff look forward to working with both Chairmen in their new roles.
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Next Friends of NIDA Briefing to Focus on Criminal Justice Portfolio
On January 13, the Friends of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) held its first Executive Committee meeting of 2009 at APA headquarters. Among the items discussed were plans for the 12th in a series of educational briefings on Capitol Hill, the next of which is scheduled for March 27. This briefing will feature a review of NIDA’s Criminal Justice and Drug Abuse Treatment Studies (CJDATS) research portfolio. NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow will provide a review of emerging neuroscience findings and their potential to inform new therapeutic approaches in these populations, as summarized in the January 14 issue of JAMA. Psychologist Dr. Steve Belenko, Professor of Criminal Justice, Temple University, will draw upon his NIDA-funded research to discuss, among other issues, treatment effectiveness in reducing recidivism, the role of therapeutic communities, the use of pharmacotherapies in pre-release populations, and treatment as a means to prevent HIV and STDs. Finally, a graduate of a drug court program will share his personal perspective. The briefing is being sponsored in cooperation with the Congressional Caucus on Addiction, Treatment and Recovery, chaired by Rep. Patrick Kennedy.
The Friends of NIDA will soon be sending a letter to all returning members of the Addiction, Treatment and Recovery Caucus to thank them for their membership, as well as to new members to introduce the Caucus and encourage them to join. Attached to this letter will be a presidential transition document developed by the Friends of NIDA. “Addiction Research: A National Imperative," is a broad-brush primer outlining recommendations for the next administration and providing background information on the etiology of addiction as a brain disease, in addition to findings from the study of prevention and treatment research that should inform future research investments.
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Coalition Meets with VA’s Chief Research and Development Officer
SGRO and the Friends of VA Medical Care and Health Research (FOVA) coalition got off to a strong start early in January by meeting with Joel Kupersmith, MD, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA’s) Chief Research and Development Officer. SGRO’s Heather Kelly sits on the FOVA Executive Committee, which was invited to meet with Dr. Kupersmith and his VA Headquarters staff to discuss the status of the VA’s intramural research program. FOVA continues to be an active advocate on Capitol Hill for increasing the VA’s research funding to meet the needs of veterans, and the coalition is now pushing for an increase in the Fiscal Year 2010 budget that will advance research and provide direct funding to significantly upgrade research facilities within the VA system.
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Psychological Science Informs Deployment of Healthcare Information Technology
With healthcare reform one of the hottest topics on the new administration’s agenda, Science GRO staff hope that such reform will be informed by psychological science at all levels. That being said, the release of a report by the National Research Council entitled "Computational Technology for Effective Health Care: Immediate Steps and Strategic Directions" seems especially timely.
The report, released January 9, is the first phase of a two-phase project sponsored jointly by the National Library of Medicine, the National Science Foundation, Partners HealthCare System, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Commonwealth Fund, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. APA Fellow Don Norman represented the behavioral sciences for the Committee on Engaging the Computer Science Research Community in Health Care Informatics. The report finds current efforts to deploy health care information technology lacking and suggests success will only be achieved if computer science and health/biomedical informatics researchers place greater emphasis on providing cognitive support for health care providers and for patients and family caregivers. Beyond the scientists themselves, vendors, health care institutions, and government will also have to pay attention to cognitive support, which refers to computer-based tools and systems that offer clinicians and patients assistance for thinking about and solving problems related to specific instances of health care.
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Psychological Science Highlighted at NICHD Council
The January 22 meeting of the National Advisory Child Health and Human Development (NACHHD) Council provided a platform for discussion of the contributions of psychological science to the institute’s mission. Following the Director’s Report, the Child Development and Behavior Branch, led by Peggy McCardle, presented its Branch review report. The CDB Branch funds research on typical child development and behavior, including developmental cognitive psychology, behavioral neuroscience, early learning and school readiness, reading, writing and learning disabilities, math and science cognition, child maltreatment and violence, as well as pediatric behavior and health promotion. McCardle was joined by two of the Branch’s principal investigators, Jack Fletcher, from the Department of Psychology at the University of Houston, and Lynne Vernon-Feagans, William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of Early Childhood, Intervention and Literacy and Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina.
Fletcher commended the NICHD’s support for education research that has led to advances in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of learning disabilities over the past 25 years. As the principle investigator for the NICHD-funded Texas Center for Learning Disabilities, Fletcher leads an interdisciplinary team that focuses on the classification and definition of learning disabilities, cognitive and neural mechanisms involved in learning disabilities, as well as intervention studies in schools.
Vernon-Feagans discussed her research on the effects of poverty and rurality on education outcomes and child development. Her current NICHD project is a multi-site, multi-disciplinary, birth-cohort study of children born in each of three poor, rural Pennsylvania and North Carolina counties. In collaboration with 23 investigators, they are collecting in-depth measures of families, poverty and rurality, biological markers of family stress, family health, family work, family interactions and home and childcare literacy activities, as well as child cognition, language, emotionality and sociability.
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APA Well-Represented at NIDA Conference on Substance Abuse, Military and Veterans
SGRO took part in a recent conference sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse focused on “Addressing Substance Abuse and Comorbidities Among Military Personnel, Veterans, and Their Families: A Research Agenda.” A number of APA member psychologists from academia, the National Institutes of Health, and the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs were highlighted as invited presenters, moderators, discussants and participants during the two-day meeting held in collaboration with the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command, the Department of Defense Health Affairs, the Army Center for Substance Abuse Programs, the Department of Veteran Affairs, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and the National Cancer Institute. Sponsors hoped to “1) gain an understanding of the intervention needs of military personnel, veterans, and their families regarding substance abuse and associated difficulties; 2) discuss current prevention and treatment approaches being used with these populations and their evidence base; 3) review existing efficacious prevention interventions and drug abuse treatments that may be appropriate for adapting and testing within military and veteran populations and their families; 4) understand how to successfully conduct research in military and veteran settings; and 5) formulate a research agenda for conducting addictions prevention and treatment research with military and veteran populations and their families.”
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About SPIN
APA's Science Government Relations Office (GRO) wants you to know about the important policy issues that involve psychological science at the national level. The Science GRO staff advocate for psychological science not only with members of Congress, but also with the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, Education, Justice, and with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and National Science Foundation. To keep you up-to-date regarding science policy within these agencies and on Capitol Hill, Science GRO staff write various articles and publish them monthly in an electronic newsletter called Science Policy Insider News (SPIN).
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