Category: 115th Congress

Additional details from the conference report for the Labor-HHS/ Defense package that will be considered by both chambers in the near future are provided below.

As noted before, NIH would receive $39.1 billion, an increase of $2 billion.  The new funding level would include $711 million designated for the agency from the 21st Century Cures Act.  Within the $39.1 billion, the conference report calls for the following:

• $2.34 billion for Alzheimer’s disease reserach
• an increase of $86 million for the Precision Medicine Initiative
• an increase of $29 million for the BRAIN Initiative
• a $100-million increase for the Cancer Moonshot

Of the $711 million for the NIH that would come from the 21st Century Cures Act:

• $400 million would be for the National Cancer Institute
• National Institute of Mental Health and National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke would each receive $57.5 million
• $186 million would be dedicated to the Precision Medicine Initiative
• $10 million for regenerative medicine

Under the conference agreement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would receive $7.95 billion and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is slated to receive $334.0 million.

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health would receive $336.3 million and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency would be funded at $5.47 billion under this bill.

Within the Department of Education, the Institute for Education Sciences would receive $615.5 million in FY2019, an increase of $2 million over the current level.

House and Senate conferees yesterday officially agreed to a massive spending package for FY2019 that combines the two biggest annual appropriations bills, the Labor-HHS-Education and Defense measures.  The explanatory statement for the conference report is available here.  The text of the conference report is also available on-line here.

The Senate could take up the $855-billion package, which represents approximately 65 percent of all discretionary spending for FY2019, next week with the House following suit the following week.  The current plan is to add a short-term continuing resolution to this bill that would fund other agencies and programs whose spending bills haven’t been passed by the October 1 deadline through December 7.

Here are some of the details with respect to the Labor-HHS-Education component of the bill:

Biomedical and health

• National Institutes of Health (NIH):  $39.1 billion, an increase of $2 billion over current level
• Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA):  $7.16 billion, an increase of $146.8 million
• Nursing programs:  level-funded at $249.5 million

Student aid and higher education

• Pell Grant:  maximum grant of $6,195 ($100 increase)
• Title VI international programs:  level-funded at $72.6 million
• Federal Work-Study:  level-funded at $1.13 billion
• SEOG:  level-funded at $840 million
• TRIO:  $1.06 billion, an increase of $50 million
• GEAR UP:  $360 million, an increase of $10 million

A summary of the Labor-HHS-Education part of the agreement is available here.

Office of Federal Relations will provide additional details, including those about the defense part of the bill, throughout the day.