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News and updates

News and updates

House Bill Includes Increases for NIH, Student Aid and Higher Education

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The House Labor-HHS report includes increases for a number of agencies, programs, and accounts of great interest to both UW and the broader higher education community.  These include, for example, the following–

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.

Student Aid/ Higher Education

  • Pell Grant

The House bill would increase the Pell Grant maximum to $6,895 from the current maximum of $6,495.

  • 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.

  • FWS/SEOG/ TRIO/ GEAR UP/ GAANN

Federal Work Study would be increased by 20.5% to $1.43 billion while TRIO would see an increase of 18.2% to $1.3 billion.  In addition, GEAR UP would be increased by 10.9% to $408 million.  On the graduate education side, the bill proposes to support GAANN at $25.5 million, an increase of 8.5% (this program has not seen an increase in several years).

  • IES

The committee proposes to fund the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) at $762.5 million, nearly a 19% increase.

Policy provisions

In addition to funding various programs and agencies, the bill would also allow DACA-eligible students to become Pell-eligible.

We will provide updates on this bill as the legislative process continues to move forward.

 

House Committee Approves Defense Bill, More Action Scheduled for Later This Week

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The full House Appropriations Committee cleared the FY2022 Defense spending bill yesterday by a party-line vote of 33-23.  Among other efforts, the legislation funds Pentagon-supported basic and applied research programs .  The detailed committee report that outlines the individual accounts in bill is available here.

The committee is scheduled to take up additional measures of interest to UW later this week, with the Labor-HHS-Education and Commerce-Justice-Science bills slated to be marked up tomorrow and the Energy and Water Development legislation on deck for Friday.

Earlier today, the committee released the reports for the Labor-HHS-Education bill and the CJS bill and we will provide additional details about all of these bills after further analysis.  The Energy and Water Development report is not yet available.

 

 

Appropriations Process Kicks Into Gear

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With six more bills scheduled for at least subcommittee action this week, the annual appropriations process for FY2022 has kicked into gear. This week’s activities follow those that took place the last week of June.  This means that all 12 spending bills will have moved through at least the subcommittee process by the end of this week.

The following pieces of legislation are scheduled for subcommittee action this week:

On Tuesday, the full Appropriations Committee is scheduled to take up the Defense and Homeland Security bills.  The committee is currently scheduled to mark up the E&W and THUD bills on Friday.

The following bills have already cleared the full committee:

The Legislative Branch and Financial Services bills are still awaiting full committee action.

We will provide details as they become available.

Deal Reached on an Infrastructure Package

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Today the White House announced a deal has been reached with the Administration and a group of bipartisan Senators on the outline of a $1 trillion (including approx. $579 billion new spending) traditional infrastructure package. These priorities include roads, bridges, public transit, electric vehicles, coastal infrastructure, rural broadband access, and supporting IRS tax collection efforts on high earners. The legislation must still be written and pass both chambers.

Calls from within the Democratic caucus for a “human” infrastructure package- addressing paid leave, childcare, housing, and community college, is likely to go through the budget reconciliation process in a similar manner to the American Rescue Plan Act. The President indicated he would want to see both pieces of legislation arrive on his desk together.

Read more here.

Bipartisan ARPA-H Legislation Introduced

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US Representatives DeGette (D-CO) and Upton (R-MI) released yesterday bipartisan legislation which would create the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health outlined in President Biden’s FY22 budget request. Titled the Cures 2.0 Act, the legislation would provide more than $6.5 billion for US research efforts on health issues such as cancer and Alzheimer’s, as well as improve Medicare coverage, patient access to health information, caregiver training, and diversity in clinical trials.

Draft text is available here.