Members of the two houses of the US Congress last week (November 25) reached agreement on a $328.1 billion omnibus spending measure that funds 11 departments and numerous agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The bill, which includes modest, though respectable, increases to both agencies, faces a very uncertain future when the full House and possibly Senate convene briefly next week to consider it.

The fiscal year (FY) 2004 consolidated conference bill (HR 2673) gives NIH $27.98 billion, a 3.7% increase of $1.0 billion over last year's appropriation, and $318.6 million more than the White House had requested. House appropriators noted the real increase is more than 7% after excluding one-time expenses in the FY 2003 budget. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the lead NIH institute for biodefense research, would receive $4.3 billion, a 17% increase over last year. About $1.6 billion of this is slated for bioterrorism-related initiatives.

NSF would receive $5.6 billion, an increase of $300 million over last year and $130 million more than requested by the White House. Funding includes $4.3 billion for research, $156 million for equipment, and $945 million for education. The Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would be funded at $4.78 billion, $262 million more than last year and $439 million more than requested by the Bush administration. All these amounts are before an across-the-board 0.59% budget cut imposed on all programs and projects except defense and military construction funds.

“We were hoping for a quite a bit more,” said Howard Garrison, public affairs director for the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. “And with the reductions, it's now even more modest.” Garrison told The Scientist that the biomedical community is now gearing up to focus on the FY 2005 budget. “Everybody sees '04 as a sobering experience,” he said. “We need to convince Congress it's a crucial expenditure.”

The full House is scheduled to convene December 8 for one day of deliberations. Members of the House had removed a number of politically volatile provisions of the bill, including rules on overtime pay, television station ownership, and gun records. It thus remains unclear whether House members will approve the measure or send it back to conference. “In the process of putting together this omnibus appropriation bill, the House has, I think, reached a new low in terms of its willingness to reflect the will of the membership,” complained Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.) on the House floor.

If the House does approve the bill, the Senate is expected to return on December 9 to take up the measure. If either the House or Senate fails to approve the bill, the measure will have to wait until Congress reconvenes on January 20, 2004. “At this point, it's impossible to know what's going to happen,” said David Moore, associate vice president for governmental relations at the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Evidently anticipating delays, President Bush on November 22 signed into law a fourth continuing resolution (PL 108-135) keeping agencies running at FY 2003 levels through January 31. Lawmakers and the administration had hoped to avoid a repeat of last year's federal budget boondoggle, which saw final budgets delayed by political wrangling for nearly 5 months after the fiscal year began.

One of the politically contentious issues that threatens to derail the appropriations measure involves a dispute between the White House and the Senate involving overtime pay regulations. The Senate had inserted language that would have blocked planned revisions of Labor Department overtime rules. President Bush had threatened to veto the measure, and congressional members removed the language.

Funding for Project BioShield, the White House's plan to accelerate development and production of new vaccines and countermeasures against bioweapons, was approved in September and signed into law October 1 at $890 million for FY 2004 and a total of some $5.6 billion over the next 10 years.

The Department of Homeland Security budget for FY 2004 has been approved at $29.4 billion. Included is $874 million for science and technology programs to develop biological, radiological, and nuclear countermeasures. This includes $70 million for university-based centers of excellence.