Congress to Consider Short-Term Funding Resolution; Continued Grassroots Efforts Needed to Ensure Highest Possible Funding Level for NIH

September 18, 2008 – Congress has returned from the annual August district work recess with a shortened legislative schedule due to the November elections and no fiscal year (FY) 2009 appropriations bills finalized. As in past years, Congress is not expected to finish appropriations before the end of the fiscal year on September 30. Instead, congressional leaders are expected to pass a continuing resolution (CR) to fund federal programs including NIH into the beginning of FY 2009 and possibly through the end of January 2009 and the start of the 111th Congress.

President Bush released his FY 2009 budget proposal, which includes funding for the NIH, earlier this year. The proposed budget would cut billions of dollars from federal health programs and eliminate scores of programs in order to make his first-term tax cuts permanent.

The Administration's proposal would provide $29.3 billion for NIH in FY 2009, which represents the sixth consecutive year that the NIH budget has failed to keep pace with biomedical inflation. In the five years through 2008, a series of nominal increases and cuts has amounted to flat funding for NIH, and the NIH has lost approximately 11 percent in purchasing power due to inflation.

House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees approved spending bills earlier this summer with slight increases for NIH above the current year's funding level and President Bush's FY 2009 budget.

However, because of a shortened Congressional schedule due to the elections, Congress is not expected to complete working on these bills before the end of the fiscal year on September 30. Instead, Conggress is expected to pass a CR that will continue FY 2008 funding through the first part of FY 2009. Continuing with the FY 2008 funding levels in FY 2009 will be detrimental to the NIH. It is important that Congress considers the Subcommittees' approved funding levels as they draft the CR. It is critical that the highest funding level for NIH prevail in any final funding package.

Congress is currently working on drafting the CR, and it is important that you visit the ASH Advocacy Center to contact your representative and senators and urge them to do all they can to increase federal funding for biomedical research and support the highest possible funding for NIH in the CR.