Endocrine Insider
March 19, 2008

The release of the president’s budget in early February signaled the beginning of the budget and appropriations process in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. The House and Senate passed their respective budget resolutions during the week of March 11, 2008. The resolutions, which originated in each chamber’s budget committee, provide the framework for how much money each appropriations subcommittee may use to fund the programs within the government agencies under its purview for the upcoming fiscal year. Funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) falls under the Labor-Health and Human Services-Education (L-HHS) Appropriations Subcommittees of the House and Senate.

The House budget resolution includes $25.4 billion more in spending for domestic programs than President Bush has requested and the Senate budget resolution includes $21.8 billion more than the president requested. President Bush has stated that he will veto any bill that exceeds his FY 2009 spending requests and does not reduce the number of earmarks by half when compared to FY 2008.

As reported in an earlier edition of Endocrine Insider, the president is requesting funding for the NIH in FY 2009 equal to the funding levels of FY 2008 ($29.3 billion, which includes $78 million for Interior Appropriation for Superfund Research). The Senate passed—by a vote of 95-4—an amendment to the budget resolution offered by Senators Specter (R-PA) and Harkin (D-IA) which would add $2.1 billion to the amount allocated in the budget resolution for the NIH. As the resolution calls for more than the president’s budget, the addition of the amendment brings the total increase for NIH to $3 billion, or 10.3 percent, over FY 2008. The 12 appropriations subcommittees will be holding hearings on the funding needs for their respective agencies, and will mark-up the appropriations bills in the coming weeks. The Endocrine Society will be submitting written testimony to the Senate L-HHS Subcommittee in the coming weeks, and will be requesting that the subcommittee allocate the full amount called for under the Specter-Harkin amendment to NIH in FY 2009.