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The FY2020 Deal

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After weeks of negotiations, Congressional leaders released last evening the long-awaited texts of the FY2020 appropriations bills.

As we noted before, the 12 bills were combined into two massive legislative packages.  The first package is the “defense” package and consists of the Defense, Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS), Financial Services-General Government, and Homeland Security measures.  The second “non-defense” package consists of the remaining spending bills—Labor-HHS-Education (LABOR-HHS), Agriculture, Energy and Water, Interior, Legislative Branch, Military Construction, State-Foreign Operations, and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development—and a host of other bills and provisions of policy importance but not directly related to appropriations.

The House is expected to vote and pass the measures today, and the Senate is expected to pass both measures by Thursday, prior to the Continuing Resolution expiring.

The President is expected to sign the measures.

We will provide additional details throughout the week.  Here is an initial breakdown of how various agencies and programs would fare in FY2020 under this package of bills. This post will be updated.

LABOR-HHS

National Institutes of Health

  • Overall: $41.7 billion (including $492 million from 21st Century Cures Act)—increase of $2.6 billion
    • $2.8 billion for Alzheimer’s research
    • $3.1 billion for HIV/AIDS research
    • $500 million for Precision Medicine
    • $500 million for BRAIN Initiative
    • $195 million for Cancer Moonshot
  • Fogerty: $80.76 million and increase of $2.65 million

HRSA

  • Title VII Health Professions and Title VIII Nursing workforce development programs receive  $684.5 million — a $42.8 million (7%) increase.
    • The legislation includes first-time funding for the Loan Repayment Program for Substance Use Disorder Treatment Work and Mental and Substance Use Disorder Workforce Training Demonstrations within the Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training program

CDC

  • Overall:  $8 billion – increase of $636 million
  • NIOSH: $342 million– increase of $6.5 million

Other HHS items of note:

  • The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund, which funds the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), is reauthorized through FY2029.
  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is level funded at $338 million.
  • The Administration is prohibited from lowering F&A rates.
  • NIH salary caps remain at Executive Level II.
  • $25 million for gun research. Out of the $25 million set aside, $12.5 will be from the CDC and the other $12.5 will come from the NIH. The Dickey amendment language remains in place and CDC cannot use the funding to lobby in favor of gun control.
  • Delay scheduled Medicaid DSH allotment reductions through May 22, 2020

Department of Education

  • Pell Grants: maximum award of $6,345 – increase of $150
  • SEOG: $865 million – increase of $25 million
  • Federal work study: $1.18 billion – increase of $50 million
  • TRIO: $1.09 billion – increase of $30 million
  • GEAR-UP: $365 million – increase of $5 million
  • GAANN: $23 million – level funded
  • Institute for Education Sciences: $623.5 million – increase of $8 million
  • International Education/ Title VI programs: $76.1 million – increase of $4 million

Also, the measure would require the Department of Education to brief Congress on how they are administering of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Temporary Extended Public Loan Forgiveness programs.

Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS): $252 million — increase of $10 million

CJS

National Science Foundation

  • Overall: $8.278 billion – increase of $203 million
  • Research and Related Activities: $6.737 billion – increase of $217 million
  • Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction: $243.23 million – decrease of $52.5 million
  • Education and Human Resources: $940.0 million – increase of $30 million

NASA

  • Overall: $22.63 billion – an increase of$1.13 billion
  • Space Grant: $48.0 million – increase of $4 million

NOAA

  • Overall: 3.76 billion – increase of $167 million
  • NOAA Climate Research: $169.5 million – increase of $10.5 million
    • Climate Research Cooperative Institutes: $66.5 M – increase of $5.5 million
  • Integrated Ocean Observing System Regional Operations: $39.5 million—increase of $0.5 million
  • Sea Grant: $87 million total, including Aquaculture – increase of $6 million
    • Aquaculture: $13 million – increase of $1 million

 

INTERIOR

  • Overall: $13.5 billion – increase of $545 million
  • USGS (part of Interior):  $1.27 billion increase – of $110.4 million 
  • Climate Adaptation Science Centers: $38.3 million – increase of $13.0 million
  • Cooperative Research Units: $24 million – increase of $5.5 million
  • ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning: $19 million – increase of $2.9 million, plus an additional $6.7 million for infrastructure
  • EPA: $9.06 billion  – increase of $208 million
  • EPA Science: $716.4 million
    • EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grant program: $6 million
    • $6 million for Harmful Algal blooms
  • National Endowment for the Arts: $162.25 million – increase of $7.25 million
  • National Endowment for the Humanities: 162.25 million – increase of $7.25 million

 

ENERGY

  • Overall: $38.586 billion – increase of $2.9 billion
  • Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy: $425 million – increase of $59 million
  • Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy: $2.79 billion – increase of $411 million
  • Office of Science: $7 billion – increase of $415 million
    • $71 million for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning across the six Office of Science programs
    • $195 million for Quantum Information Sciences including
      • $120 million to carry out a basic research program on quantum information science
      • $75 million for the establishment of up to five National Quantum Information Science Research Centers
  • Fusion Energy Sciences Research: $414 million — reduction from $432 million

 

Other Items of Note:

  • Repeal of the parking tax: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) tax on employer provided parking and transportation benefits as unrelated business income.
  • Repeal of the “kiddie” tax: (taxing nonqualified scholarship amounts for minors at the higher, trust rate rather than nominal tax rate).  This glitch in TCJA caused a child’s unearned income over $2,100 to subsequently be taxed at the trusts and estates rate instead of their parents’ top marginal tax rate, including taxable scholarship amounts.
  • Retroactive reinstatement and extension of the above-the-line tuition deduction, which expired at the end of 2017.  The bill reinstates the deduction from 12/31/2017 until 12/31/2020.

Spending Details Now Available

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The Senate Appropriations Committee has made available the details of the spending bills it cleared yesterday.

The text of the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill is available here and a copy of the report is available here.

The committee has also posted the Interior spending measure and the accompanying report.

With respect to what is in the bills, the Senate CJS legislation would:

  • Fund the National Science Foundation at $8.32 billion, an increase of $242 million above the current level.
    • Within NSF, the Research and Related Activities Account would receive $6.77 billion, an increase of approximately $250 million above current levels.
    • Activities funded through the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction Account would be funded at $253 million, which is $42.5 million below the current level.  The committee funds the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope at the Administration-requested level.
    • Education and Human Resources would see a total of $937 million under this bill.
  • Fund NASA at $22.75 billion, $1.25 billion above the FY2019 level.
    • The Science Mission Directorate would be funded at $6.91 billion.
      • Within Science, the bill proposes to fund the various accounts in the following manner:
        • Earth Science:  $1.945 billion
        • Planetary Science:  $2.631 billion
        • Astrophysics:  $1.171 billion
          • $445.7 million for WFIRST
        • Heliophysics:  $735.0 million
      • Aeronautics:  $725.0 million
      • Space Technology:  $926.9 million
      • STEM Engagement:  $112.0 million
        • Space Grant:  $47.0 million

The Interior Appropriations Bill also funds a number of agencies, programs, and accounts of interest to UW as well.  For example, the committee-approved bill would fund the National Endowment for the Humanities at $157.0 million, $2 million above the current level.

In addition, the bill also funds, among other agencies and programs, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Within USGS, the report includes the following language with respect to the Climate Adaptation Science Centers:

The new Climate Adaption Science Center sub activity receives $44,488,000. The recommendation includes funding to maintain the fiscal year 2019 levels for the Centers. It is the Committee’s expectation that funding will be distributed according to the allocation methodology in previous years ensuring all Centers remain open and at current levels.

It also contains the following text with respect to the early earthquake warning system:

Natural Hazards.—The bill includes $170,838,000 for Natural Hazards programs. Within the Earthquake Hazards program, the Committee continues to support the multitude of regional earthquake initiatives, but is concerned about the budget structure for each network as it relates to operations, maintenance, and infrastructure; therefore, the Committee directs the Survey to report back within 90 days after enactment of this act with a breakdown of funding between the operations, maintenance, and infrastructure expenditures in 2018 and 2019 along with recommendations on how to better structure the funding for these initiatives. This recommendation provides funding to ensure all the regional networks receive 2019 base funding level for operations and maintenance, including earthquake early warning and the Central and Eastern USNetwork [CEUSN]. Within these amounts, the Committee directs that regional networks which recently acquired the USArray stations from the National Science Foundation receive $3,000,000 for the operations and maintenance as these networks work to incorporate and use all Earthscope data. On top of base operations and maintenance for each network, the recommendation includes $17,500,000 for equipment and infrastructure costs. The Committee is also concerned that the updates to the national seismic hazard maps do not consistently include all 50 States and directs the Survey to update these maps for all 50 States, not just the lower 48, and provides $2,000,000 for this effort.

The Committee is concerned about the lack of knowledge and real time instrumentation available for the Cascadia subduction zone; therefore, the Committee encourages the continued development of a system for Cascadia that will help prepare for and mitigate the negative human and economic impacts of a major seismic event.

The Cooperative Research Units, also funded by the USGS, would receive $18.4 million next year, the same amount as this year.

We will provide further details as the process moves forward.

Details of Senate CJS, Interior Bills Available

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Many more details contained in the Senate Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) and Interior Appropriations Bills are now available.  Both were approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday.

CJS Bill

The detailed report accompanying the bill is available here.

With respect to the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Senate committee-passed bill would fund the agency as a whole at $8.07 billion and the individual directorates in the following manner:

  • Research and Related Activities– $6.56 billion ($6.33 billion in FY2018)
  • Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction– $249.3 million, including full funding for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope ($182.8 million in FY2018)
  • Education and Human Resources– $915.0 million ($902.0 million in FY2018)

The bill would fund NASA at $21.3 billion.  The agency is currently funded at $20.7 billion.

  • NASA Science would receive a total of $6.40 billion.  That amount would be divided up in the following manner:
    • Earth Science:  $1.93 billion
    • Planetary Science:  $2.20 billion
    • Astrophysics:  $1.24 billion, including $352 for WFIRST
    • Webb Telescope:  $304.6 million
    • Heliophysics:  $720.0 million
  • Office of Education— The bill proposes to restructure the current Office of Education to a new Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Opportunities account.  As part of the new account, the Space Grant Program would be funded at $44 million.

Within NOAA, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) would receive $508.3 million.  As part of OAR, the Climate Research Cooperative Institutes would be funded at $61.0 million.  The Competitive Research line within the Climate Research Program would be funded at $60 million.

The committee showed its support for the Sea Grant Program by allocating a $6-million increase for it.

The Integrated Ocean Observing System would be funded at $37.0 million under this bill.

Interior Bill

A number of agencies and programs of interest are also funded by the Interior Bill.  A copy of the report that details the directives regarding the spending levels in it is available here.

A program funded through the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Cooperative Research Units would see a modest increase in the Senate bill.  The committee also included the following observation and directive about the program:

Committee notes that USGS Cooperative Research Units [CRU] have served as a cooperative network with Interior partners to improve and increase youth involvement in science and resources management. The Committee recognizes the value of these programs in building the workforce of tomorrow and strongly encourages the Survey to develop a plan and address open research positions at research institutions and fill open positions at CRUs as quickly as practicable to support the educational pipeline.

The Earthquake Early Warning system, also funded through the USGS, would be supported at $12.9 million in FY2019 while the Climate Adaptation Science Centers would be level-funded at $25.3 million.

 

 

Congress Continues to March Through Appropriations

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Both chambers of Congress continue their march through the FY2019 appropriations process.

The Senate Appropriations Committee took up and cleared its Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS), Interior, and Legislative Branch bills earlier today, meaning that the committee has cleared seven of the 12 spending bills.  Some of the initial details about the CJS and Interior bills were posted yesterday.

In the House, the Defense spending measure was reported out by the Appropriations Committee yesterday and the Labor-HHS-Education bill is scheduled to be taken up by its subcommittee Friday morning.

House Defense Appropriations Bill 

  • Army:  Under this bill, the Army basic research (“6.1”) programs would be funded at $442.2 million while the Army applied research (“6.2”) programs would receive $1.32 billion.
  • Navy:  Navy 6.1 programs would be funded at $619.4 million while Navy 6.2 programs would be funded at $889.2 million.
  • Air Force:  The bill would fund Air Force 6.1 at $516.4 million and would support 6.2 programs at $1.38 billion.
  • Defense-wide:  Defense-wide 6.1 programs would be funded at $720.1 million while the defense-wide 6.2 account would receive $1.97 billion.

A copy of the detailed report for the bill is available here.

Subcommittee Labor-HHS-Education Bill

While the full details from the bill are not yet available, some of the contents of the measure are known.

  • National Institutes of Health (NIH):  Under this bill, NIH would receive an increase of $1.25 billion above the current level, to $38.3 billion
  • Pell Grants:  The maximum award would be maintained at $6,095.
  • TRIO and GEAR UP:  TRIO would be increased by $60 million and GEAR UP would be increased by $10 million.

We will share additional details as they become available.

Initial Details of Senate CJS, Interior Bills Available

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As noted yesterday, two of the Senate appropriations subcommittees approved the FY2019 Commerce-Justice-Science and Interior spending bills. While the detailed reports accompanying the bills are not yet available, some from the measures are known.

The CJS bill would fund some of the agencies in the following manner:

  • $8.1 billion for NSF, $301 million above the FY2018 enacted level, including:
    • $6.56 billion for NSF’s research and research activities, an increase of $222 million above the current level;
    • $915 million for NSF’s education and training programs, an increase of $13 million above FY2018.
  • $21.3 billion for NASA, $587 million above current level, including:
    • $6.4 billion for Science, $179 million above the FY2018 level, including $1.9 billion for Earth science, $2.2 billion for Planetary science, $1.5 billion for astrophysics (including $304 million for the Webb telescope), and $720 million for Heliophysics;
    • $725 million for Aeronautics, an increase of $40 million;
    • $933 million for Space Technology, $173-million increase.
  • $5.48 billion for NOAA, a $426-million decrease below the current level, including $71 million for the Sea Grant program, which is a $6-million increase.

The Interior bill, which funds, among other agencies the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).  It would appropriate $1.15 billion to the USGS and $155 million to the NEH.

We will continue to provide additional details as they become available.