Francis Collins may be just days away from officially being confirmed to lead the National Institutes of Health, according to Congressional staffers close to the issue.

Francis Collins Image: Wikipedia

A spokesperson for Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), who is ranking member of the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, told The Scientist that the committee OKed Collins's nomination without holding a confirmation hearing. The spokesperson, Craig Orfield, said that the committee performed all the typical vetting, including a criminal background check, a review of past professional history, a financial questionnaire, and a conflicts of interest probe. "Everything checked out to the committee's satisfaction," Orfield said. "If there was a problem of that nature, you can bet that we definitely would have had a confirmation hearing and those issues would have been brought up."

Instead, the committee passed Collins's nomination onto the full Senate, and the body is expected to confirm it sometime soon. "I would suspect that it will be a unanimous consent vote," Orfield said. Unanimous consent votes require neither a floor debate nor a roll-call vote, and this one would essentially amount to a proclamation that Collins has been confirmed. But Senate Republicans must agree to the measure before it can be put before the full Senate.

A spokesperson from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) office, which is in charge of scheduling unanimous consent requests, told The Scientist that Collins's confirmation is imminent. "We are working to get an agreement with Republicans to consider the nomination and hope to do so soon," wrote Reid's deputy communications director Regan Lachapelle in an email.


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