News and updates

During a day-long mark-up session, the House Appropriations Committee cleared yesterday both the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) and the Labor-HHS-Education (L-HHS) bills.

CJS

• NSF

The press release about the CJS measure passing the committee is available here.  The detailed report that accompanies the bill is available here.

The committee-approved legislation would fund the National Science Foundation (NSF) at $9.63 billion, $1.15 billion, or 13.5%, above the current level.  Within NSF, the Research and Related Activities account would be increased by $786.0 million, or 11.4%, to $7.70 billion, while the Education and Human Resources line would see an increase of $306.3 million, or 31.5%, to $1.27 billion.  The Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction account would be funded at $249.0 million, an $8 million-increase.

The accompanying report language reads, in part, “In addition, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117–2) included $600,000,000 for the National Science Foundation to fund or extend new and existing research grants, cooperative agreements, scholarships, fellowships, and apprenticeships, and related administrative expenses to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus.”

• NASA

As noted on Friday, NASA is slated for $25.04 billion under the bill, an increase of $1.77 billion.

The Science Mission Directorate would see an increase of $668.5 million for a total of $7.97 billion.

As part of the Office of STEM Engagement,  the bill proposes to fund the Space Grant program at $60 million, which is currently funded at $51 million.

• NOAA

The bill calls for an increase of $1.03 billion for NOAA, for a total of $6.46 billion in FY2022. It also calls for the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), NOAA’s research arm, to be funded at $684.5 million.  This represents an increase of approximately $114 million over the current year’s funding level, as OAR received $570.6 million for FY2021.

Also as noted previously, although there does not appear to be any explicit funding allocated for the creation of “ARPA-C”, the Climate Research program within OAR would see a $71-million increase, for a total of $253 million.

Sea Grant would see a $10-million increase to $85 million, with the increase dedicated to a coastal resiliency initiative.

The Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) would be funded at $50 million, an increase of $9 million.

Labor-HHS-Education

The committee took up the Labor-HHS bill first yesterday before moving on the CJS bill.  The press release for yesterday’s action is available here.  The detailed report accompanying the bill is also on the committee website, here.

Here are a few more details about the bill–

NIH

The bill calls for $49.4 billion for NIH, an increase of $6.5 billion above the current level.  Of the proposed $6.5-billion increase, $3.5 billion would be for the base NIH budget and $3 billion would be for the creation of ARPA-Health (ARPA-H), a new proposal from the Biden Administration.  The report states that ARPA-H should be a distinct entity within the NIH structure.

In addition to providing funds to the newly proposed ARPA-H, the bill would also add resources to other efforts at the NIH, such as:

• $7 billion, an increase of $432 million above the FY 2021 enacted level, for the National Cancer Institute, including $194 million for the Cancer Moonshot;
• $541 million, an increase of $41 million above the FY 2021 enacted level, for the All of Us Precision Medicine Initiative; and,
• $612 million, an increase of $52 million above the FY 2021 enacted level, for the BRAIN Initiative.

Higher Education

International education programs (Title VI)

Under the House bill, the collection of international education programs would see an increase of 19.2% and would be funded at $93.2 million.  Currently, these programs are funded at $78.2 million.  More specifically, Domestic Programs would see an increase of $10 million, or 14.4%, to $79.35 million.  The Fulbright-Hays International Programs would be funded at $13.81 million, an increase of $5 million, or 56.8%.

Finally, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has indicated that the Labor-HHS measure, along with five others– Agriculture, Energy and Water, Interior, Military Construction-VA, and Transportation– will be packaged into a larger bill for floor action during the week of July 26.