Category: On the Hill

At 2 am last night, House and Senate appropriators released the FY 2017 Omnibus, which  comprises the 11 unfinished FY 2017 appropriations bills, providing fresh spending instructions for nearly every corner of the federal government and formally appropriates more than $1 trillion in discretionary spending for FY 2017, in keeping with the spending limits agreed to last year. A high level overview is below.

Overall, the FY 2017 Omnibus provides an annualized total of $1.07 trillion in base spending for FY 2017, or $1.16 trillion including Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding. Beyond the top line, and widely reported, the FY 2017 Omnibus includes a $2 billion increase to NIH or a 6.2 percent increase over current levels. The deal includes an extra $1.5 billion to enhance border security, but there is no money to begin construction of Trump’s wall along the Mexican border.  Additionally, appropriators absolutely rejected about $18 billion in cuts to domestic discretionary programs that Trump had suggested to avoid further expanding the deficit in his FY 2017 supplemental request. To boost funding for the military and border security, lawmakers increased by $15 billion the OCO spending, which does not count against statutory budget cap.

While the budget numbers will look big on paper, they will have less meaning in the real world because most of the money to be formally appropriated has already been spent, since there are only five months remaining in the current FY 2017, which runs through Sept. 30.

The most recent stopgap (H.J.Res. 99), enacted Friday, keeps the government open through May 5. The Omnibus legislation could see a House could vote as soon as Wednesday. Once the Omnibus passes the House, it will move on to the Senate.

The legislation did resolve a significant amount of big political sticking points, including:

• provide a permanent fix for a depleted health fund needed by thousands of retired coal miners;
• shore up Puerto Rico’s troubled Medicaid program with an extra $295 million;
• provide $2 billion in disaster relief for California, West Virginia, Louisiana and North Carolina;
• combat wildfires with an extra $407 million;
• $68 million to reimburse local law enforcement agencies for the costs of protecting Trump and his family, predominantly in Manhattan;
• provide $100 million to combat opioid abuse; and
• preserve federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

 

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Labor-H

                Health Provisions

• NIH — $34.1 billion (+$2.0 million)
  • Fogarty Center receives $72,213,000 (+$1.7 million)
• AHRQ received: $324,000,000 (Slight cut of ~$8 million)
• SAMSHA — $3.6 billion (+ $130.5 million above the previous Administration’s budget request. Includes an increase of $150 million for treatment of opioid and heroin programs)
• CDC – $7.3 billion (+ $22 million above the fiscal year 2016 enacted level. This includes $6.3 billion in appropriated funds, as well as $891 million in transfers from the Prevention and Public Health Fund.)
  • NIOSH– $335.2M (about + $4M)

• ERC Program $29 million (+$500 thousand)
• AFF Program $25.5 million (+$500 thousand)
  • Chronic Disease Prevention — $1.112 billion ($777.6 million in discretionary, $338.0 million in transfers)

• Prevention research centers — $25.5 M
• Worker Health will receive “not less than FY16 levels”
• HRSA — $6.4 billion for HRSA (+ $77 million)
  • Health Professions Title VII – $301M (- , but language below in dentistry
  • Nursing Title VIII — $229 million (level)

• National Institute of Nursing Research receives $150,273,000 for nursing research.

Report language of note:

NIH

“Funding from the 21st Century Cures Act was previously appropriated for fiscal year 2017 by section 194 of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2017. Per the authorization, $300,000,000 is transferred to the National Cancer Institute for cancer research and $52,000,000 will be allocated from the NIH Innovation Fund, in this agreement reflected in the Office of the Director, for the Precision Medicine Initiative cohort ($40,000,000), the BRAIN Initiative ($10,000,000), and regenerative medicine research ($2,000,000).”

 

Education Provisions

• IES — $605.267 million (- $13 million)
• GEAR Up — $339.7 million (+$17 million)
• TRIO — $950 million (+$50 million)
• Pell
  •  Maximum award will be increased to $5,935, funded by a combination of discretionary and mandatory funds
  • Year-round Pell restored
  • $1.3 B in surplus reallocated

• Title VI international– $72.2 million (flat)

 

Report language of note:

TRIO:

“There is concern that the Department has rejected and made ineligible for review several fiscal year 2017 grant applications based on minor formatting issues. The Department is strongly encouraged to provide flexibility to such applicants by permitting submission of a corrected application. The Department should include consistent formatting requirements across all TRIO competitions in the future.”

 

Defense

Research Accounts:

6.1:  $2.28 Billion (level)

6.2:  $5.30 billion (+$30 million)

 

USDA

AFRI — $375 million (+$25 million)

McIntire-Stennis — $33.9 million (level)

 

CJS

• NSF– $7.4 overall
  • MREFC– $209.0 Million (+$8.7 million, $121.9 million for 3 research vessels)

• NOAA
  •  Integrated Ocean Observing System– $30.7 million (+$1.2 million)

• Adopts IOOS language from both bills (will need to go through again) and encourages use of HF radars
  • OAR CI’s– $60.0 M (level)
  • Sea Grant– $63.0 M (- $10.0 M)

• NASA
  • Space Grant– $40.0 M (level)
  • Earth Science– $1.92 B (level)

E&W

• EERE — $761 million (+$40 million)
  • Water Power Energy R&D $84 million (+$14 million)

• ARPA-E — $276 million (+$15 million)
• Office of Science – $5.4 billion (+$40 million)
  • Fusion — $330 million (+$7 million)

 

Interior

• EPA Science and Technology — $91.9 million (-$9 million)
  The bill provides $713,823,000 to be partially offset by a $7,350,000 rescission for a net discretionary appropriation of$706,473,000. The bill transfers $15,496,000 from the Hazardous Substance Superfund account to this account.
  • Chemical safety and sustainability – $ 126.9 million (-$9 million)
  • National priorities — $4.1 million (-$10 million, but over the FY2017 request of $0)
  • Safe and sustainable water resources — $106.2 million (-$1.1 million)
  • Sustainable and healthy communities — $ 134.3 million (-$5.6 million)

• USGS
  • CRU’s– $17.4 million (level)
  • Earthquake Early Warning– $10.2 M (+ $2 M)

• NEH– $149.8 million (+$1.9 million)