The House Appropriations Committee was scheduled to take up today its FY2019 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Bill. The legislation funds, among other agencies and programs, those that support biomedical research and student financial aid, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Pell Grants. The committee markup, however, has been postponed until after the July Fourth recess. While Republicans are citing scheduling issues as the cause of the postponement, Democrats are claiming that the delay is due to Republican concerns about amendments that will likely be offered by Democrats to address family separation issues during the markup session.
As it stands, the current version of the legislation, the details of which are available here, would hold the Pell Grant maximum steady at $6,095 while funding the program at $22.475 billion overall. With respect to other financial aid and higher education programs, Work Study would receive $1.13 billion while TRIO and GEAR-UP would be funded at $1.01 billion and $360 million, respectively. SEOG would also bevlevel funded at $840.0 million.
International Education-Title VI programs and the Institute for Education Sciences would be held level at $72.1 million and $613 million, respectively, by the House bill.
On the biomedical research front, NIH would see an increase of $1.25 billion under this bill and would receive $38.33 billion. The Health Resources and Services Administration would receive $6.54 billion under this bill.
On the other side of the Hill, the Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee is scheduled to take up its version of the FY2019 bill later this morning. The full Appropriations Committee is scheduled to mark up the legislation on Thursday, when it is also expected to consider the Defense spending bill. The Office of Federal Relations will report on the details as they become available.