2009-11-19

Although federal FY 2010 began on October 1, most of the annual appropriations bills remain unfinished. As a result, Congress was forced to pass a second continuing resolution to continue funding the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal programs at current levels through December 18, 2009.

While congressional leaders made significant progress in advancing their respective versions of bills to fund NIH in FY 2010 prior to adjourning in August for the annual district work period, no further progress has been made on the bills since July. Only the House has completed action on its version of the bill. The Senate bill, which has been approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee and still awaits approval by the full Senate, would increase the NIH budget by $442 million over FY 2009 levels, bringing the total NIH budget to $30.8 billion. This increase is equal to the President's budget request that was released in May, but $500 million below the level that the House of Representatives has approved.

Congressional leaders are still uncertain of how they will proceed with the remainder of the unfinished FY 2010 appropriations bills, though they have indicated that combining all of the unfinished appropriations bills into an “omnibus” bill is the likely course of action the for completing the remaining funding bills. Though precise funding levels for programs such as NIH have not been shared publicly, an omnibus bill will likely attempt to reach a compromise between the differences in funding levels recommended in the House-passed Labor-HHS bill and Senate Appropriations Committee’s draft Labor-HHS bill. Ultimately, this will likely mean funding for NIH in FY 2010 will once again lag behind the rate of biomedical inflation.

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