The Senate passed the $8.3 billion supplemental to address COVID-19 with only one Senator voting against. The House passed the measure last night.
The President has said he would sign the measure.
Category: 116th Congress
House Passes Supplemental, Senate to Pass Soon
Last night, the House passed, 415-2, the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020 (H.R. 6074) to provide emergency supplemental funding in response to the novel coronavirus. The Senate is expected to pass today.
The package is $8.3 billion, which lawmakers released hours before the vote, and it has $7.8 billion in new funding for programs and agencies within the HHS, Small Business Administration, and State Department. Additionally, the legislation includes a $500 million provision related to telehealth.
The Senate is expected to consider the legislation today.
The President has said he will sign the measure.
The bill has:
- $2.2 billion, available through September 2022, for the CDC, including:
- $950 million in grants and cooperative agreements for state/local surveillance, epidemiology, laboratory capacity, infection control, mitigation, communications, and other preparedness and response ($475 million that would be available/allocated within 30 days of enactment).
- At least $300 million for global disease detection and emergency response.
- $300 million for the Infectious Diseases Rapid Response Reserve Fund.
- The ability for CDC to use such funds to support grants for construction, alteration, or renovation of non-Federally owned facilities to improve state/local preparedness and response capability.
- Additional funding for existing public health preparedness grants (that should be funded at not less than 90% of previous funding levels).
- $836 million, available through September 2024, for the NIH, including:
- $826 million for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus domestically or internationally.
- $10 million transferred from NIAID to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for worker-based training to prevent and reduce exposure of hospital employees and other first responders.
- $3.1 billion, available through September 2024, for the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund to support, among other activities:
- Development and purchase of necessary countermeasures and vaccines.
- Purchase of vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and necessary medical supplies, including for potential deposit in the Strategic National Stockpile (with an additional $300 million in contingency funding to purchase additional products if needed).
- Grants for construction, alteration, or renovation of non-Federally owned facilities to improve state/local preparedness and response capability.
- $61 million, available until expended, for the Food and Drug Administration to support:
- Development of medical countermeasures and vaccines.
- Advanced manufacturing for medical products.
- Monitoring of medical supply chains.
- Authority for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to waive, under the public health emergency declaration for the novel coronavirus, certain current telehealth requirements by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
- ~$2.5 billion (distributed around) for State, CDC and USAID for international support and response to COVID-19.
Upcoming: House Science, Space, and Technology Hearing on FY21 Budget Proposal
The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology will convene a hearing before the full committee: “A Review of the Administration’s Federal Research and Development Budget Proposal for Fiscal Year 2021”.
Witness: Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier, Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Date: Thursday, February 27th, 2020
Time: 10:00 am EST
Place: 2318 Rayburn House Office Building
To watch the hearing, please visit the Committee Website.
The Details Still Aren’t Pretty (Part 2)
We continue to look through the budget documents released yesterday.
National Science Foundation
As noted yesterday, AI research seems to fare well across the different agencies. While the Computer Science Directorate seems to be primary beneficiary of that initiative at NSF, other directorates within the Research and Related Activities (R&RA) account at the NSF are slated for cuts in the budget. In fact, NSF as an agency would receive a cut of 7 percent in FY2021. The total budget for R&RA would be funded at approximately $6.2 billion, a cut of more than $500 below the current appropriated amount.
DOD
With respect to DOD-sponsored research, the Science and Technology accounts, “6.1” through “6.3” accounts, would see an overall decrease of 13.5 percent below the current level. The Basic Research programs (“6.1” research) would be cut by nearly 11 percent.
DOE
The Office of Science at the Department of Energy would be cut by more than 17 percent while ARPA-E is slated for elimination.
Environmental Science Programs
Not surprisingly, programs in the environmental and climate science arenas would also see cuts.
For example, at the EPA, the Office of Science and Technology would be reduced by 32 percent. Within the USGS , the Administration has proposed eliminate the Cooperative Research Units and has proposed to fund the Climate Adaptation Science Centers at $9.78 million, which is currently funded at $38.3 million.
We will continue to provide further updates. It is important to keep in mind that the president’s budget being released is the start of a very long process, with Congress having the final say in how the funds are actually appropriated.
The Details Are Not Pretty (Part I)
The details of the President’s FY2021 budget requests for various agencies of interest to UW are not pretty. Let’s start with some of the details related student aid and higher education programs at the Education Department.
Programs Slated for Elimination
- Federal Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants (FSEOG)– Currently funded at $865 million
- GEAR UP– Currently funded at $365 million
- Title VI/ International Education Programs– Currently funded at $76 million
- Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN)– Currently funded at $23 million.
Other Education Department Proposals
- The Pell Grant maximum would remain at $6,345. The proposal seeks to fold the Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grant program into the Pell program.
- In addition to eliminating the SEOG program, the budget proposals also seeks to cut the Federal Work-Study program from $1.18 billion to $500 million while also changing the allocation formula.
- The president’s budget calls for turning the various TRIO programs into a single block grant program that would be administered by states. The proposal calls for the total funds for this new block grant to be cut from $1.09 billion to $950 million.
Student Loans
- On the loans front, all subsidized loans would be eliminated, meaning all federal student loans would become unsubsidized loans, including undergraduate loans. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program would be eliminated as well.
- The department proposes to consolidate five income-driven repayment (IDR) into a single IDR program, with the repayment rate set at 12.5 percent of discretionary income. The standard repayment cap would be repealed. For those borrowers with only undergraduate loan debt, the remaining balance would be forgiven after 180 months of repayment, while those with graduate debt would have their balances forgiven after 30 years of repayment.
- Loan limits would change under the budget proposal as well. It calls for Parent PLUS loan limits for undergraduate students to be set at $26,500. Graduate students would see their annual loan limits capped at $50,000 and the aggregate limits capped at $100,000 under this proposal.
- In addition, the Administration wants to study the idea of turning the Office of Federal Student Aid into a separate, non-governmental entity.
- The Administration also wants to explore the concept of requiring “postsecondary institutions that accept taxpayer funds to share in the financial responsibility associated with student loans.”
Institution of Education Sciences
The Administration proposes to cut IES by $58 million below the FY2020 level to $565 million for FY2021. Within its budget, it is calling for the elimination of both the Regional Education Laboratories and the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems.