The House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee released text of its draft FY 21 spending bill on July 6, ahead of the subcommittee’s 5 p.m. markup today.
The draft bill provides a total of $47 billion for NIH in FY 2021, which the committee-prepared summary describes as an increase of $5.5 billion above the FY 2020 enacted level. Within the total, the bill provides $42 billion in annual appropriations (including the full $404 million provided in FY 2021 through the Innovation Account established in the 21st Century Cures Act for specific initiatives), an increase of $500 million above the 2020 enacted level (1.2%), as well as $5 billion in emergency appropriations available through FY 2025. The $5 billion in emergency funding may be used “to offset costs related to reductions in laboratory productivity resulting from interruptions or shutdowns of research activity” in FY 2020, and would be provided to the Office of the Director, with the requirement that at least $2.5 billion be distributed across NIH proportionate to each institute and center’s FY 2020 funding level.
The Ad Hoc Group Steering Committee released a statement in response to the draft bill noting that the coalition is “grateful that the Subcommittee continues to recognize the NIH as a key national priority despite the restrictive subcommittee funding allocation imposed by the impractical pre-pandemic discretionary spending caps.” Describing the importance of both sustained, meaningful growth in the NIH’s base budget and the need for supplemental emergency relief, the statement also indicates, “We welcome the $47 billion provided for the NIH in the Subcommittee’s FY 21 draft, though we recognize that the unworkable spending caps forced $5 billion of this funding to be provided outside of the NIH’s base budget. If coupled with additional emergency supplemental spending legislation to provide at least $10 billion in dedicated research relief for NIH, the Subcommittee’s FY 21 bill would represent an important investment to advance new progress toward cures.”
The full statement is available here: https://www.aamc.org/research/adhocgp/070720PressStatement.pdf.