FY 2005 Funding Approved
On December 6, 2004, Congress finalized an omnibus appropriations bill to
fund government agencies for the fiscal year that began October 1, 2004. During
the appropriations process for this coming fiscal year, a number of factors
affected the government�s allocation of funds. Foremost among those was the
looming federal deficit, which recently reached $7.4 trillion dollars. In an
effort to curb federal spending, Congress sought to hold all non-defense
discretionary spending to FY 2004 levels, with overall spending held to no more
than a 1% increase. In order to accomplish this goal and still fund
Congressional and White House priority programs, all non-defense and
non-homeland security appropriations were subject to a 0.8% across-the-board
cut. The priority programs that will receive the funds generated by the cuts
include those at the VA and NASA, bio-defense programs for the United States
Postal Service and the Millennium Challenge Accounts program (a foreign
assistance program which provides aid to low income countries that pursue sound
policies).
Included in the $388.4 billion spending bill was funding for biomedical
research programs at the NIH, NSF, VA and NASA. Overall, $132.2 billion of the
discretionary funding in the bill went to federal research and development
programs, an increase of $6.0 billion (4.8%) over FY 2004 levels. However, 80%
of the increase was for defense R&D, with the largest percent increases going to
the Departments of Homeland Security, Defense and Agriculture.
In this climate of fiscal conservation, scientific research has fallen
progressively lower on the list of funding priorities, and this is reflected in
the summaries given for each agency below. The research budgets of the National
Science Foundation and the Veteran�s Administration both saw funding cuts, and
the modest 2% increase in the NIH budget failed to even keep pace with the rate
of inflation. NASA was the biggest winner, with an increase of 5.5% in its
research budget, reflecting the current administration�s emphasis on improving
manned space flight. With budget problems likely to persist for at least the
next few fiscal years, highlighting the critical role that biomedical research
plays in a healthy American society and economy will be of critical importance
in convincing Congress and the White House to give research a higher priority.
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
In the second year following the completed doubling of the budget, NIH was
provided with a $28.8 billion appropriation. However, the budget will only be
$28.6 after the 0.8% cut. This sum will be further subjected to a 2.4% transfer
of funds to other public health service (PHS) programs, leaving approximately
$27.9 billion available for programs. This �tap� is spent at the discretion of
the Secretary of HHS, and in recent years, the percentage transferred from NIH
to other PHS programs has steadily increased from 1.25% originally, to 2.4%
currently.
The NIH�s $27.9 billion appropriation represents a 2% increase in funding
over its FY 2004 budget, which is significantly below the projected inflation
rate for biomedical sciences (currently 3.5%). The impact that the limited
increase in funds will have on new grants is not yet clear, but it is estimated
that the money lost from the 0.8% cut and 2.4% fund transfer alone would have
funded as many as 545 new grants. According to NIH, the number of new grants may
increase with a return to 2003 levels after declining in 2004. At the same time
proposal success rates may drop as low as 27%, and the funding level of
individual new and continuing grants may decrease to compensate for fewer
available dollars.
Most of the individual NIH institutes will receive increases ranging from 1.6
- 3.3%. Programs associated with Director Elias Zerhouni�s NIH Roadmap are
expected to receive $237 million in FY 2005, $60 million of which will come from
the Office of the Director, with the remaining $177 million coming from NIH
centers and institutes. Of the $4.4 billion appropriated to the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), $100 million will be
transferred to the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and $150
million will be spent for construction of BSL-3 labs to enhance research on
biological and other agents. Within the National Institute of Diabetes and
Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), $150 million was ear-marked for juvenile
diabetes research.
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Despite support in Congress for an effort to double the budget of the
National Science Foundation between 2002 and 2007, funding for that agency
declined 1.9% to $5.5 billion. The budget will be $5.47 billion after the 0.8%
cut, which is $105 million less than was appropriated in FY 2004. Within the
NSF, the largest decrease was in Education and Human Resources, which fell from
$939 million to $841 million, a decrease of 10.4%. The budget for Research and
Related activities was decreased 0.7% to $4.2 billion. Within the research
budget, $94 million is designated for plant genome research and another $347
million for polar research and operations. Funding for Major Research Equipment
and Facilities Construction was increased by 12.1%.
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
The R&D budget for the VA declined 0.8% to $813 million this year. Of that,
$405.6 million ($402.35 million after the 0.8% cut) will go to medical and
prosthetic research. This is a decrease of approximately $0.4 million over 2004
funding.
NASA
The NASA budget for Biological and Physical Research was allocated a total of
$1.048 billion ($1.04 billion after the 0.8% cut), representing a 5.5% increase
over 2004 levels. However, this figure is an estimate based on language in the
appropriations bill and NASA has wide latitude in determining the spending
allocation from the agency�s overall appropriation of $16.2 billion.
Most figures were taken from the AAAS analysis of the R&D funding in the FY
2005 appropriations bill, available at the URL
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/upd1104.htm.
| 