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A spending deal released by the US Congress on Dec. 16 is good news for science and technology funding overall, with select agencies and programs to receive a roughly 6% increase in funding, according to an analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The funding agreement resolves a months-long logjam for fiscal 2020. The fiscal year runs from Oct. 1, 2019 to Sept. 30, 2020. The House of Representatives passed the measure Dec. 18. The Senate is expected to pass the measure and send it to President Donald J. Trump before current stopgap federal spending legislation expires Dec. 20.
Trump had proposed major cuts to science programs in his March budget proposal, including 12% from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation plus 31% from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Congress and the White House subsequently struck a deal in July to increase the total US federal budget for 2020 and 2021. But House and Senate leaders struggled to agree on how to distribute the money.
In the final deal, the Department of Energy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are the biggest winners. DOE science programs will receive a 10.8% increase overall, with the most significant jumps for nuclear security, energy efficiency and renewables, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which Trump has previously tried to eliminate. NASA, meanwhile, will see its space exploration programs jump nearly 20%.
The National Institutes of Health will receive a 6.5% boost. Each institute and center at the NIH will receive no less than 3.3% above fiscal 2019 levels, for investments in research, new drugs and medical devices, and work to lower health care costs. The big winner at the NIH is the National Institute on Aging, which will see a 14.9% increase for research on Alzheimer’s disease. The National Science Foundation is set to receive a 2.5% increase.
The US Food & Drug Administration is slated to receive a 3.0% increase in direct appropriations, excluding user fees. That increase includes $2.0 million for cannabidiol (CBD) research, policy, and market surveillance. The legislation requires the FDA to provide Congress with a report within 60 days on the agency’s progress toward issuing a policy of enforcement discretion for CBD products under its jurisdiction. Such a policy could allow companies to sell CBD in dietary supplements and foods in the US without the risk of FDA enforcement, despite being illegal under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
Science programs at the Environmental Protection Agency will get a 1.4% increase. Congressional appropriators considered—but ultimately opted against—including provisions on the control, monitoring, or cleanup of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the funding deal.
The byline of this story was updated on Dec. 23, 2019, to include writers Britt Erickson and Cheryl Hogue.
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