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Category: 2017 UW Federal Agenda

Home for the Holidays?

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The plan is for Congress to finish all its work for the year this week, with a stopgap spending measure to fund the government through next Spring. When in Spring? That’s still a very good question. 

The House Republicans held a conference meeting on Friday that did not resolve how long the stopgap should last or precisely what level of spending it should allow. Without conference agreement, only a handful of House and Senate GOP leaders and staff will decide the substance of a bill that will shape government spending for at least the better part of the current fiscal year. 

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said his goal is to complete all House action by Thursday, but the true deadline is this midnight on Friday, December 9th. That is when the previous CR expires. Failure to pass a new bill would trigger a government shutdown. The new measure will most likely extend current funding levels for most federal agencies through sometime between March and May. A precise timeline had yet to be decided.

Writing the continuing resolution, which generally forbids any new projects, also requires including provisions that allow agencies to make adjustments in their spending to meet changing needs; these are called anomalies. The Pentagon already has complained to budget writers that a long-term stopgap risks doing harm to needed weapons programs and troops currently deployed overseas. While each CR does have a limited amount of anomalies, do not expect broad sweeping increases, such as a multi-billion increase to NIH. 

As the House takes the first steps on the CR, the Senate will consider both 21st Century Cures and the NDAA conference report this week.

House Considers NDAA Today

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The House will debate and vote on the compromise National Defense Authorization Act today, likely before noon.

The measure is expected to pass, though it is unclear by how wide a margin. The White House hasn’t indicated where President Barack Obama will come down on the final bill, though it leaves out many of the most controversial provisions that drew Democratic opposition and a veto threat from the administration.

The compromise NDAA ditched the contentious riders, including provisions on the greater sage grouse and workplace protections based on sexual orientation. It’s also expected to include $9 billion on top of the Pentagon’s budget request, incorporating the administration’s $5.8 billion war supplemental request as well as funding to cover military readiness shortfalls.

For FY2017, the NDAA conference agreement would authorize Department of Defense (DoD) Basic Research (6.1) at $2.142 billion (FY16 is $2.309 billion), Science and Technology (6.1-6.3) at $12.489 billion (FY16 is $13.251 billion), and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at $2.957 billion (FY16 is $2.891 billion).

The NDAA conference also would extend the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program until FY2022 (Sec. 1834). The bill would not make any changes to the SBIR/STTR set-aside amounts.

The conference agreement would establish the Manufacturing Engineering Education program (Sec.215), to award grants to industry, non-profits, universities or consortiums of such groups, to enhance or establish new programs in manufacturing engineering education. The Manufacturing Engineering Education program language is a slightly modified version of the Manufacturing Universities language originally included in the Senate-passed FY2017 NDAA bill.

 The FY2017 NDAA report, summary fact sheet and joint explanatory statement are posted here.

The Senate is expected to consider the bill next week.

Cures Passes House

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Last night, the House approved, 392-26, the 21st Century Cures Act, amended by a Manager’s Amendment submitted by House Energy and Commerce Chair Fred Upton (R-MI). While the Manager’s Amendment modifies slightly the allocation of funding in the NIH Innovation Account on an annual basis, it maintains the overall level of funding in the Account at a total of $4.796 billion between FYs 2017 and 2026. For the Precision Medicine Initiative, the Amendment provides $1.455 billion between FYs 2017 and 2026; for BRAIN, $1.511 billion between FYs 2017 and 2026; for cancer research, $1.8 billion between FYs 2017 and 2023; and for clinical research to advance regenerative medicine using adult stem cells, the Amendment provides $30 million between FYs 2017 and 2020.

The overwhelming vote tally gained more Republican votes and registered the same level of Democratic support when compared to the vote on a previous 2015 bill version (HR 6).

The legislation now moves to the Senate for consideration next week.

White House Supports Cures

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Late yesterday, the White House issued a Statement of Administrative Policy (SAP) in support of the 21st Century Cures legislation, which is on the House Floor today.

The SAP expressly calls out the Innovation Fund in the measure, which targets funding for several of the Administration’s health care priorities, as a highlight of the measure.

Read the SAP here. 

No Additional Funding for NIH in CR

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Senate Appropriations Labor-HHS subcommittee Chairman Roy Blunt (R-MO) has said today that the CR will not include the $2b bump to NIH that was included in the Senate bill. The CR, in whatever duration, should contain level funding of $32.084b or FY 2016 levels. There has been a research and health community effort to increase funding for NIH as an anomaly to the CR, but Blunt said today that it will not happen.

While this does not mean that an ultimate increase to NIH will not happen in a final FY 2017 package, it will not happen in the stopgap spending measure.

Additionally, there is now tension between the House and Senate as to when to end the CR. House is looking towards a March ending and the Senate wants a May date.