House and Senate conferees yesterday officially agreed to a massive spending package for FY2019 that combines the two biggest annual appropriations bills, the Labor-HHS-Education and Defense measures. The explanatory statement for the conference report is available here. The text of the conference report is also available on-line here.
The Senate could take up the $855-billion package, which represents approximately 65 percent of all discretionary spending for FY2019, next week with the House following suit the following week. The current plan is to add a short-term continuing resolution to this bill that would fund other agencies and programs whose spending bills haven’t been passed by the October 1 deadline through December 7.
Here are some of the details with respect to the Labor-HHS-Education component of the bill:
Biomedical and health
- National Institutes of Health (NIH): $39.1 billion, an increase of $2 billion over current level
- Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA): $7.16 billion, an increase of $146.8 million
- Nursing programs: level-funded at $249.5 million
Student aid and higher education
- Pell Grant: maximum grant of $6,195 ($100 increase)
- Title VI international programs: level-funded at $72.6 million
- Federal Work-Study: level-funded at $1.13 billion
- SEOG: level-funded at $840 million
- TRIO: $1.06 billion, an increase of $50 million
- GEAR UP: $360 million, an increase of $10 million
A summary of the Labor-HHS-Education part of the agreement is available here.
Office of Federal Relations will provide additional details, including those about the defense part of the bill, throughout the day.