A U.S. Senate panel has okayed President Barack Obama's request for next year's funding for the National Institutes of Health -- a $442 million boost, for a total of $30.8 billion.

According to a statement released by the Senate, lawmakers decided not to award the agency a huge amount of funding because of the recent stimulus package, which passed $10 billion on to the NIH. "The Committee expects to put a higher priority on these critical programs in the fiscal year 2011 appropriations bill," the statement said.

This increase halved what the U.S. House of Representatives requested for the agency last week. The two proposals must be reconciled before they are signed into law.

Jennifer Zeitzer, director of legislative relations for the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, told ScienceInsider that the Senate bill does not include requests from President Obama to increase funding for specific diseases (cancer and autism). She said FASEB is happy with the change, because it does not agree with slotting money for specific diseases.


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