AAI President JoAnne Flynn, Ph.D., submitted testimony to the Senate Finance Committee for its June 5 hearing on “Foreign Threats to Taxpayer-Funded Research: Oversight Opportunities and Policy Solutions.” While acknowledging concerns raised “by the NIH, this Committee, and press reports, among other sources, …about threats posed by foreign countries and foreign nationals to U.S. national security and U.S. intellectual property,” Dr. Flynn urged Congress, “before moving forward, …to understand fully the collaborative nature of science and the urgent need for international collaborations if the U.S. is to advance science, foster innovation, and remain the world’s leader in biomedical research.”

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On May 8, the House Appropriations Committee approved its fiscal year (FY) 2020 funding bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) by a party-line vote of 30-23. The bill includes a $2 billion funding increase (+5.1 percent) for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which, if enacted into law, would result in a total NIH budget of $41.1 billion. A similar version of the bill was adopted by the House Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee on April 30. Although neither bill had bipartisan support, Appropriations Committee Chair Nita Lowey (D-NY, 17th), Subcommittee Chair (and 2013 AAI Public Service Awardee) Rosa DeLauro (D-CT, 3rd), and Subcommittee Ranking Member (and 2018 AAI Public Service Awardee) Tom Cole (R-OK, 4th), all strong NIH champions, were among those who agreed on the need to increase NIH funding despite President Donald Trump’s proposal to cut the NIH budget by ~$5 billion.

The House bill would increase funding for all NIH Institutes and Centers, with most receiving a boost of about five percent. It also provides substantial funding for programs partially supported by the NIH Innovation Account (created by the 21st Century Cures Act): in total, the “All of Us” program would receive $500 million, the BRAIN Initiative would receive $411 million, and the Cancer Moonshot would receive $195 million.

Many of the NIH proposals recommended by President Trump’s March budget were rejected in this bill. However, the House did embrace two ideas that he announced in his January State of the Union Address. The first is an effort to end the HIV epidemic in the United States, a goal that the President hopes to achieve through increased funding for HIV prevention and treatment. While the House bill does provide significant increases for HIV prevention and treatment, it rejects the President’s proposal to cut NIH funding for HIV research, instead increasing this budget item by $149 million. The President also vowed to increase funding for pediatric cancer research, calling for the creation of a Childhood Cancer Data Initiative in his budget, which the House funds at his full requested level of $50 million.

The Labor-HHS bill also increases funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by $921 million, for a total budget of $8.3 billion. Within this total, the portion of the budget directed toward fighting Immunization and Respiratory Diseases would increase by about $50 million to $848 million.

The relevant Senate committees have yet to consider the FY 2020 Labor-HHS bill, and the House bill still awaits consideration by the full House.

In addition to passing a final bill, Congress will need to address existing caps which limit discretionary spending (both defense and nondefense) for FY 2020 and FY 2021. Unless Congress raises the caps on nondefense discretionary spending, from which NIH is funded, there will likely be insufficient funding available to support increased funding for any federal programs funded by this part of the budget, including bipartisan priorities like NIH.

AAI recently submitted written testimony to the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies urging a $2.5 billion increase in the NIH budget for fiscal year 2020. Writing on behalf of AAI, Committee on Public Affairs Chair David D. Chaplin, M.D., Ph.D. (AAI ’86), recommends a budget of “at least $41.6 billion ... to enable NIH to fund critically important new and ongoing immunological research, support the current – and next – generation of biomedical researchers, and ensure continued U.S. leadership in basic, translational, and clinical research.

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In mid-February, President Trump signed into law an appropriations bill that funds the nine federal departments that had not received full-year funding through the end of fiscal year (FY) 2019. The House and Senate had approved the bill the previous day, following intense negotiations by a bicameral conference committee established to reach a compromise on government spending levels, including border security measures, for FY 2019.

The new law includes funding increases for a number of science agencies, including the National Science Foundation (+$300 million), the Food and Drug Administration (+$269 million), and the United States Department of Agriculture’s “Agriculture and Food Research Initiative” (+$15 million). Because the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had received its full-year appropriation for FY 2019 in September 2018 (+$2 billion), it was not directly affected by the new law.

Prior to the law’s enactment, the federal government had been partially shut down for 35 days, the longest such closure in history. Through social media and other mechanisms, AAI had encouraged the immunology community to contact their Members of Congress and urge them to reopen the federal government. After Congress reached an interim agreement that reopened the federal government for three weeks, AAI Committee on Public Affairs Chair David D. Chaplin, M.D., Ph.D., issued the following statement:

“AAI is relieved that the President and Congress have agreed to reopen all agencies affected by the partial government shutdown. We are concerned, however, that the temporary nature of this reprieve will continue to damage the federal scientific enterprise and demoralize our valued federal scientific workforce. We urge the President and Congress to reach a permanent agreement that will allow all federal science agencies, and the dedicated scientists and contractors who advance their missions, to approach their work – and the future – with confidence.”