Late this week, the House and Senate reached a tentative deal to avoid a government shutdown and finalize government spending for fiscal year (FY) 2020. Congress and the Administration have until midnight on Dec. 20, 2019, to either finalize FY2020 spending or pass a short-term measure to avoid a federal government will shut down. A key sticking point to reaching a deal was the President’s demand for additional border wall funding. The spending agreement will provide $1.375 billion in border wall funding, the same level as FY2019. The tentative deal, providing $1.37 in federal government spending, must still be passed by the House and Senate and signed into law by the President. It would fund all twelve spending bills, including the health spending bill, which funds the NIH and CDC, for the remainder of FY2020. It is expected that the individual spending bills will be drafted and incorporated into several “mini-omnibuses” and voted on in each chamber just ahead of the Dec. 20 deadline.

Although the details of the spending bills will not be made public until over the weekend or early next week, it is expected that the health spending bill will provide a funding increase of somewhere between $2 - $3 billion in funding for the NIH in 2020.