Endocrine Insider
November 9, 2007

This week, both the House and Senate approved a conferenced version of the FY2008 Labor-HHS-Education (L-HHS) appropriations bill. The House initially passed the measure as part of a larger package that included the military construction-VA (VA) spending bill, with the intention of preventing a presidential veto of L-HHS by combining it with a bill that has the President’s support. However, the Senate voted first to split the L-HHS bill from the VA bill by failing to attain 60 votes in support of combining them, and then passed the standalone L-HHS bill, sending it back to the House for final independent passage. This ensures that the president will receive the L-HHS bill on its own and sets the stage for a veto of the measure.

The President has threatened to veto all domestic appropriations bills that exceed his proposed budget requests, and the current L-HHS bill does so by $9.8 billion. The conferenced bill provides NIH with $30 billion in FY2008, a $100 million increase over the amount the Senate had previously approved and a $300 million increase over the House-approved amount. This is an apparent increase over FY2007 of $1.1 billion or 3.8 percent. However, after required transfers to the Global AIDS Fund, the increase is reduced to $900 million. The next step is for the L-HHS bill to be sent to President Bush for his approval or veto. In the event of a veto, both the House and the Senate would need a 2/3-majority vote to override. Currently, neither the House nor Senate has the votes necessary to override.

Look for further updates on appropriations in future issues of Endocrine Insider.