2017

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Senate Committee Approves $2 Billion NIH Funding Increase

September 2017

This week, the Senate Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations subcommittee, followed by the full Appropriations Committee, approved a $2 billion funding increase for the NIH for fiscal year (FY) 2018 – a win for the ATS! The bill provides total proposed NIH funding of $36.1 billion in 2018 as part of the FY2018 health spending bill. The Senate panel's allocation is a rejection of the Trump administration's proposed 21 percent cut to NIH and is higher than the House's proposal of $1.1 billion for the agency. The Subcommittee also rejected the Administration's proposal to cap NIH indirect costs at 10 percent. The House bill also rejects the indirect proposal, so this is another win.

The Senate bill proposes the following funding levels for the NIH institutes that the ATS monitors most closely:

  • $3,322 billion for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, about a 6.6 percent funding increase over the FY2017 level of $3,122 billion
  • $5,127 billion for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about a 9 percent increase over the FY2017 level of $4,639 billion.
  • $2,887 million for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, about an 8 percent increase over the FY2017 level of $2,887 million (NIGMS receives some funding for the Precision Medicine Initiative, which would receive a $60 million increase).
  • $737.7 million for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, about a 6.4 percent funding increase over the FY2017 level of $693.7 million.
  • $1,426 million for the National Institute of Child Health and Development, about a 3.5 percent increase over the FY2017 level of $1,380 million.
  • $155 million for the National institute of Nursing Research, about a 3.5 percent increase over the FY2017 level of $150.2 million.

Although we do not have full details on the bill's funding levels for the CDC yet, we can report that the Senate panel rejected the Administration's proposal to cut $1.2 billion from the CDC's FY2018 budget and has instead provided roughly flat-funding for the agency at the FY2017 level.  We can also report that the CDC's asthma budget, as well as that of the domestic tuberculosis and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, is flat-funded at the current FY2017 funding levels.

The next step for the FY2018 health spending bill is full Senate floor votes but the outlook for how FY2018 spending will be finalized is unclear. The House is currently moving towards floor votes by the end of this week on an omnibus FY2018 spending measure that includes its own version of the health spending bill. But given that Congress has only 10 working days left before the expiration of the current fiscal year on September 30, a temporary FY2018 spending measure will be passed providing government funding until December 2017 and Congress will finalize agreement between the differing House and Senate bills at that point.  We will keep you posted, including any directives for respiratory health when more details on the Senate bill are released later this week.

Last Reviewed: October 2017