Earlier this year, science policy analysts were hopeful that Congress would avert last year's federal budget boondoggle and complete spending bills for fiscal year (FY) 2004 before the budget year begins on October 1. Now, although the House has passed its versions of all 13 appropriations bills and the Senate has passed five, hopes that key science budgets will be finalized in a timely manner seem optimistic.

Differences between key House and Senate appropriations bills promise to be large enough to trigger serious wrangling in still-to-be scheduled conference committees. Funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is likely to be held hostage to an unrelated dispute between the White House and the Senate involving overtime pay regulations. Aides say that President Bush will veto the spending measure if the final bill contains Senate-drafted provisions blocking revisions of Labor Department overtime rules.

"This bill isn't going anywhere as long as the overtime pay provision that the Senate passed is in there," said David Moore, associate vice president for governmental relations at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). In previous years, such a delay would actually have improved chances to add more money to NIH's budget. But with this year's extremely tight discretionary funding limits, "nobody sees any real strategy to get to that point," he said.

According to Moore, congressional staff members are beginning to talk about the need for continuing resolutions to keep federal agencies in business, assuming the October 1 deadline is missed. The possibility of lumping agency budgets into omnibus funding bills—as happened in February—is an increasingly attractive option for legislators, who are hoping to adjourn by October 3 to resume election activities.

"I don't hold out much hope that all this will be wrapped up by mid-October," Moore said.

Last week (September 10), the full Senate passed its FY 2004 appropriations bill (HR 2660) for the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services, giving NIH $27.98 billion, a 3.7% increase of $1.0 billion over this year's appropriation and $318.6 million more than the White House requested.

At the same time, the Senate rejected an amendment that would have added $1.5 billion more to NIH's budget for a 9.2% total increase of $2.5 billion over FY 2003. The amendment, authored by Senators Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), had been supported by nearly 600 scientific societies, research institutions, and patient groups. (The Scientist, as a member of Research!America, was a signatory to a statement supporting passage of the Senate amendment to increase NIH funding.)

Although 52 senators approved the measure, the amendment fell eight votes short of the three fifths necessary to overcome the spending cap placed on the FY 2004 budget resolution. "It was a disappointment, but it was not unexpected," Moore said. "Any time you deal with an amendment that requires some breach of budget agreements, it will be tough to pass."

In July, the House voted to give NIH $27.66 billion, a 2.5% increase over this year, matching the White House's request. The $318 million difference between the House and Senate bills will still need to be resolved in upcoming conference committee meetings.

All versions of the NIH budget would give about $4.3 billion to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the lead NIH institute for biodefense research. This represents a 17% increase over NIAID's FY 2003 budget, which had been boosted 47% from the previous year.

The budget for the National Science Foundation (NSF) is also in play. On September 4, the Senate Appropriations Committee marked up its FY 2004 spending bill for Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, and Independent Agencies (S 1584), giving NSF $5.59 billion, $276 million or 5.2% more than FY 2003 and $110 million more than the administration requested. The Senate's version, however, is $53 million less than the $5.64 billion approved by the full House on July 25 (HR 2861). The House version is $158 million more than the administration had requested.

"Obviously, we want the House mark; it's a lot friendlier than the Senate's," said Adrienne Froelich, director of public policy for the American Institute of Biological Sciences. Senators, she said, wanted to give NSF more money but had been under strong pressure to fund Veterans Affairs programs.

The Senate version of the NSF budget funds research and related activities (RRA) at $4.22 billion, a 4% increase of $164 million over FY 2003. The House version funds RRA at $4.31 billion. And while the House bill includes $12 million to begin a demonstration of the long-delayed National Ecological Observatory Network, the Senate bill provides no such new funding for major research equipment and facilities construction. In fact, senators inserted language into the bill expressing their continued dissatisfaction with how the NSF prioritizes funding for large construction projects.

The Senate appropriations measure must be voted on by the full Senate and any differences with the House version reconciled in conference committee. At this point, all versions of the NSF budget fall nearly $1 billion short of the $6.6 billion level included in the NSF authorization bill signed into law last December. That nonbinding legislation called for doubling NSF's budget by FY 2007.

The Senate is still wrestling with Project BioShield, the White House's plan to accelerate development and production of new vaccines and countermeasures against bioweapons. On July 16, the House overwhelmingly approved the Project BioShield Act of 2003 (HR 2122), which would provide some $5.6 billion over the next 10 years to develop and produce vaccines and therapeutics against a range of pathogens and toxins that could be used as weapons. For FY 2004, the House set BioShield funding at $890 million.

The Bush administration wants BioShield to have a mandatory, permanent funding stream to spur research and development of new vaccines and therapeutics. But numerous congressmen have balked at the idea, saying a mandatory funding mechanism would be an abdication of their oversight responsibility. The final House bill compromised on the issue: it authorizes discretionary spending at the amounts requested but requires the administration provide new, additional reporting on how the funds are being used.

In the Senate, a new version of the BioShield bill (S 1504) removes the mandatory funding language that had been included in an earlier version approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in March (S 15). This change is largely because Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) had blocked the bill from floor action because he objected to the mandatory funding provision.

The new version authorizes full funding in FY 2004 but would give the Senate liberty to make changes in future years upon a 60-vote motion. Byrd has not indicated whether the new provisions satisfy his objections.