By clearing the last four bills yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Committee has reported out all 12 spending bills for a fiscal year for the first time in five years. The committee reported out favorably yesterday the following FY2024 spending measures: Labor-HHS-Education; Defense; Interior and the Environment; and Homeland Security. Unlike the situation in the House, where the leadership had to pull the Agriculture spending bill from a floor vote because it lacked enough support even among the Republicans, the committee process in the Senate yesterday was very bipartisan. The Interior bill passed by a vote of 28 – 0, the Defense bill was approved 27 – 1, the Labor-HHS bill was adopted 26 – 2, and the vote was 24 – 4 on the Homeland Security legislation.
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
- NIH
The Senate legislation would fund the National Institutes of Health at a total of $47.8 billion, an increase of $943 million above the current level. The total includes $1.5 billion for ARPA-H, which represents level funding under the Senate version of the bill. Within the NIH, the bill would increase, among other programs, mental health and Alzheimer’s research by $100 million each and while cancer research would see an increase of $60 million.
- Title VII Health Professions and Title VIII Nursing Programs
The legislation proposes to fund the Title VII Health Professions programs at a total of $529 million, an increase of $20 million.
At the same time, the Title VIII Nursing programs would see a total of $302.5 million, a $2-million increase over this year.
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
- Student Aid and Higher Education
- Pell Grant– The maximum award would increase by $250 to $7,645
- SEOG– $900 million (a decrease of $10 million)
- Federal Work Study– $1.22 billion (a decrease of $10 million)
- International Education– $85.7 million (level funded)
- TRIO– $1.19 billion (level funded)
- GEAR UP– $338 million (level funded)
- GAANN– $23.5 million (level funded)
- Institute of Education Sciences (IES)
- IES would be funded at $793 million, a cut of $14.5 million
USGS
- Climate Adaptation Science Centers– $63.1 million (level funded)
- ShakeAlert– $29.6 million (level funded)
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES
- $207 million (level funded)
Under the committee-approved bill, defense basic research would be see an increase of 10.5 percent for a total of $3.22 billion.
- Army basic research: $672.5 million (an increase of 5.8%)
- Navy basic research: $793.5 million (an increase of 15.2%)
- Air Force basic research: $711.9 million (an increase of 16.3%)
- Defense-wide basic research: $862.3 million (a decrease of 7.0%)
- DARPA: $4.1 billion (0.7% increase)
Both chambers are now in recess until after Labor Day.