Skip to content

FY2021 Appropriations Bills Finally Moving

With schedules and logistics thrown into complete disarray by COVID-19, progress on the FY2021 spending bills had been stalled.  The logjam has been partially broken, at least for now, in the House, with all 12 bills scheduled for markup this week.

Office of Federal Relations will provide additional details as they become available.  The following are some of the highlights of several different bills so far:

Labor-HHS-Education

National Institutes of Health

  • $47 billion total, an increase of $5.5 billion above current level ($5 billion of the increase is emergency appropriations, meaning the regular appropriation for the agency is $42 billion)

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

  • $343 million, an increase of $500 million

Student Aid

  • Pell Grant Maximum:  $6,945, an increase of $150
  • SEOG:  $880 M ($15-million increase)
  • Federal Work Study:  $1.2 billion ($30-million increase)
  • GEAR UP:  $1.1 billion (an increase of $5 million)

The legislation would also prohibit the Department of Education from implementing its new Title IX regulations.

The text of the bill is available here and a summary of the bill prepared by the committee staff is available here.  The report accompanying the bill, which contains most of the detailed breakdown of funding, is not yet available.

Commerce-Justice-Science

National Science Foundation

Under the bill unveiled earlier today, NSF would be funded at $8.55 billion, an increase of $270 million.  Within NSF:

  • Research and Related Activities Directorate would be funded at $6.97 billion (an increase of $229.9 million
  • Education and Human Resources would be funded at $970 million (an increase of $30 million.

NASA

NASA would be flat-funded at $22.63 billion in the bill.  The bill proposes to divide up the funding, in part, in the following manner:

  • Science:  $7.1 billion (a decrease of $42 million)
  • Aeronautics:  $819 million (an increase of $35 million)
  • Space Tech:  $1.1 billion (level funded)
  • Space Grant:  $50 million (an increase of $2 million)

NOAA

The bill would fund NOAA at $5.45 billion, an increase of $101.9 million.

This is the text of the bill and a summary is available here.

Interior

The current version of the House bill contains $36.76 billion in regular appropriations, an increase of $771 million, and $15 billion in emergency appropriations.

While we have not yet seen further breakdowns for the agency, the USGS is slated to receive an increase of $22 million under this bill.

Both the NEH and the NEA would each be funded at $170 million, an increase of $7.5 million.

The bill text is available here and the summary of the bill is available here.

Energy and Water

Under the the subcommittee-approved bill, the Department of Energy Office of Science would see an increase of $50 million and would be funded at $7.05 billion.

ARPA-E would see an increase of $10 million, while the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program.would be funded at $2.85 billion, an increase of $58 million.

The summary for the bill is available here.

Full Committee

The full Appropriations Committee is slated to take up the Interior bill on Friday and is scheduled to mark up both the Labor-HHS-Education and Energy and Water bills next Monday.

We will provide further details as they become available.

 

Dept. of Education Unveils New Foreign Gift Reporting Portal

Today, the US Department of Education announced a new portal through which institutions must disclose foreign gifts or contracts under section 117 of the Higher Education Act. The portal will be utilized for the next reporting deadline of July 31, 2020.

In a press release, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos explained that currently, the Department is not receiving sufficient information to determine compliance with section 117. She also reiterated that transparency is necessary to ensure academic freedom and US national security.

Presidential Proclamation on Entry of Certain Chinese Nationals

Today, President Trump announced the United States will block admission for certain Chinese nationals involved with entities that implement or support China’s Military-Civil Fusion (MCF) strategy. The restriction applies to graduate-level and above students on F or J visas, and the State Department can revoke existing visas.

The full proclamation is available here.

Research Community Reiterates Call for At Least $26 Billion for Research

In an updated letter to Congressional leadership, associations representing a swath of research institutions reiterated their call to invest at least $26 billion in scientific research in future COVID-19 response bills.  Unlike previous communications, this letter calls out specific funding levels for a number of individual agencies, including:

  • $3 billion for NSF
  • $3 billion for DOD
  • $10 billion for NSF
  • $5 billion for DOE
  • $2 billion for NASA

The letter also calls for additional funds for agencies which have research budgets greater than $100 million, including NOAA and the Institute for Education Science.

The letter is available here.

New Funding Opportunity: Department of Defense

The US Department of Defense has announced a new funding opportunity related to the COVID-19 national emergency. The Newton Award for Transformative Ideas During the COVID-19 Pandemic is now available on grants.gov, with proposals due May 15th. See this link.