2009-07-31

As Congress prepares to adjourn for its August district work period, both the House and Senate have made significant progress in advancing their respective versions of bills to fund the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in fiscal year (FY) 2010.

On July 30, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its version of the FY 2010 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill. The Senate bill includes $30.8 billion to fund biomedical research at NIH, an amount equal to the President's request. Below is a summary of the proposed budget numbers for Institutes of particular interest to ASH:

Proposed FY 2010 National Institutes of Health Funding

(dollars in millions)

The full Senate will likely not vote on the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill until September.

Although the funding provided for NIH in the Senate Appropriations Committee’s bill represents an increase of $442 million (approximately 1.65 percent) over final FY 2009 enacted levels, the Senate’s proposed funding for NIH is $500 million below the House bill’s level of $31.3 billion that was approved last week. Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA), one of the Senate’s most vocal supporters of NIH, issued a statement earlier this week indicating that the chief reason NIH did not receive a larger increase is due to the fact that it “received enormous increases in the Recovery Act, and most of that funding will be obligated during the same period covered by this appropriations bill, fiscal year 2010.”

Additionally, a number of pieces of hematology-related language are included in the Committee reports that accompany the House and Senate appropriations bills. Although report language does not require the NIH institutes to perform specific actions, it is generally viewed as Congress’ “advice” on each institute’s research agenda and NIH institute directors use the report language to help shape their research priorities for the coming year.

For FY 2010, ASH and the biomedical research community have recommended an increase for NIH of at least 7 percent over the FY 2009 funding level. This recommended increase would allow NIH funding to keep pace with a projected Biomedical Research and Development Price Index increase of over 3 percent and make up for lost purchasing power that resulted from inadequate and unpredictable funding over the past several years.

Time to Take Action: Now is the time to contact the Senate to urge support for increases in NIH funding. ASH encourages all members to visit the ASH Advocacy Center to send an e-mail to their senators. Your senators need to hear from you about ensuring adequate NIH funding in FY 2010.

Additional information about the proposed FY 2010 budget is available online. ASH will also continue to keep its membership informed about each step in the debate toward the completion of the FY 2010 federal budget, with frequent updates posted on the Society's Web site. In the meantime, if you have questions, please contact ASH Research Advocacy Manager Tracy Roades at 202-776-0544 or troades@hematology.org.

back to top