NIH, NSF Post Biggest Gains In FY 1999 Federal Budget

Although this year's research and development budget may be the biggest ever, it may also be the hardest to decipher. About half of the FY1999 spending bills reside in a 40-pound, 4,000-page document that has sent legislative staffers and departmental budget staff members scrambling to make sense of the hundreds of what some call earmarks and others call pork. Normally, the federal budget coalesces from 13 separate bills. But this year, election-year political wrangling between President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress led to a deadlock at the conclusion of the fiscal year. To complete the FY1999 budget in time for re-election campaigns, members of Congress lumped $500 billion worth of expenditures into one "omnibus" document. The tactic has met with some criticism--both because the budget uses surpluses to fund questionable "emergency" items and because of the numerous specific projects it identifies. "What surprises me is the extent of the earmarks in the [Labor, Health and Human Services] section," remarks Mike Stephens, vice president of government relations at Van Soyce Associates Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm. Stephens, who counts more than 100 earmarks in that section alone, notes that the pork proliferation represents "a quantum change" in how research-related projects get funded. As an example, Stephens points to one earmark for construction of clinical outpatient facilities that entered the budget a few years ago at $750,000 and has exploded to $66 million for 30 projects in the FY1999 budget. Still, National Institutes of Health, which is funded under this section, seems to be exempt from the practice because Congress recognizes that research projects, unlike facility construction, must remain competitive. Stephens notes that Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Ark.) wanted to insert a prostate cancer research earmark of $175 million into the NIH budget, but his colleagues talked him out of the tactic (although research into that disease will likely receive that level of funding anyway). Disease-specific earmarks continue to be a controversial issue in Washington (B. Agnew, The Scientist, 12[7]:1, March 30, 1998). As a result of this "omnibus" budget's magnitude, many agencies still don't have a detailed idea of their funding picture for FY1999. As of press time for The Scientist, NIH officials still had not worked out the budget for each of the agency's institutes and offices. Despite the confusion, a picture of increased support for peer-review life sciences research is emerging--especially in Department of Defense-sponsored cancer research, NIH funding, and the peer-reviewed grants portion of the National Science Foundation. The following analysis was gleaned through interviews with lobbyists, agency officials, appropriation committee staffers, and legislative aides. The agency receives $37.5 billion in total civilian R&D funding, an increase before inflation of $87 million, or 0.2 percent. Of that total, about $1.3 billion will be channeled to university-related grants for both basic and applied research. In addition, $135 million will again be available for breast cancer research, $50 million for prostate cancer (up from $40 million in FY1998), and $34 million for the U.S. Navy's bone marrow donor recruitment program. The agency received a $2 billion increase over FY1998's $13.648 figure--a 14.7 percent increase. Lobbyists and activists in favor of biomedical research hope to sustain those gains over four more years to double NIH's budget (P. Smaglik, The Scientist, 12[21]:1, Oct. 26, 1998). The National Human Genome Research Institute saw a big increase, perhaps reflecting the institute's new timetable for sequencing the human genome (P. Smaglik, The Scientist, 12[19]:1, Sept. 28, 1998). The NHGRI is budgeted at $264 million, up 21.9 percent over FY1998. Francis Collins, NHGRI director, noted in an E-mail interview that the boost will help the project meet its ambitious new goals. "I believe this substantial increase reflects the Congress's conviction that the time for scaling up human DNA sequencing is now, and that the sooner we can get this fundamentally important information in the public domain, in a highly accurate form, the better," writes Collins. One of the NIH's most controversial agencies, the Office of Alternative Medicine, received another huge hike. The agency will be funded at $50 million for FY1999, up from $20 million if FY1998. The office was funded at $12 million in FY 1997, meaning this year's figure represents more than a 400 percent increase in two years. The space station continues to eat into NASA's overall budget, but basic research perseveres. NASA's overall R&D budget will remain at $9.7 billion, an erosion in real dollars over the same FY1998 figure. The Science, Aeronautics, and Technology account, at $5.7 billion, drops $26 billion below the 1998 figure. However, several basic science programs fared well. Life and microgravity science rose $45 million to $264 million after dropping in FY1998. Space science also rose $99 million to $2.1 billion. Total DOE R&D rises to $7.2 billion from the FY1998 figure of $6.5 billion. The department's Office of Energy Research receives $2.7 billion for FY1999. Basic energy science receives the biggest boost, from $667 million in FY 1998 to $809 million in FY 1999. Much of that increase reflects increased funding in the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) construction. FY1999 pays for the first year of construction of the $1.3 billion project. The facility, which will be built at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, will require an estimated seven years of construction--and funding--to complete. The SNS will allow researchers to use a high-energy neutron beam to probe materials, including biological matter. The DOE's financial contribution to the Human Genome Project remains flat for a year; when inflation enters the equation the agency's FY1999 figure of $85 million actually dips below last year's level of $84.9 million. Department labs will receive $2 million over the next three years for microbial genome research and $6 million for functional genomic work in mouse, yeast, and fruit fly. The NSF will receive $3.672 billion for fiscal year 1999, up 7.1 percent from last year's $3.429 billion. Research and related activities, the portion allotted primarily to independent research grants, rose almost 9 percent to $2.770 billion. That figure includes $22 million for arctic logistics activities and an additional $10 million above the original budget request for plant genome research. The agency's education component also received a $30 million boost to $663 million, about 5 percent over FY1998 levels. These increases include an extra $7.5 million for minority graduate student activities; an additional $6 million for undergraduate minorities; and $10 million for informal science education, which funds museums and aquariums. For the second year in a row, the Polar Cap Observatory has not received any funding. The conference report to President Clinton also called on the agency to improve the participation of institutions who do not normally fall in the top 100 universities in terms of research activity. Unlike last year, the USDA's research branches posted gains above inflation. However, two peer-review grants initiatives failed to receive funding. The Agricultural Research Service, USDA's in-house research body, receives $781.5 million in FY1999, up from $744 million in FY1998. Of that figure, $481 million will be spent on research and education. The USDA's largest competitive, peer-review grant program, the National Research Initiative, also sees substantial gains, with its budget being boosted 23 percent to $119.3 million from the FY1998 figure of $97.2 million. However, a new five-year, $600 million competitive grants research program failed to materialize. Congress proposed the Future Agriculture and Food Systems program in June to support research in agricultural genomics, and biotechnology areas. While drafting the FY1999 budget, Congress diverted some of those projected funds to other areas, including ARS and NRI research programs. A smaller program, the Fund for Rural America, suffered a similar fate. That program, which was to receive $20 million for FY1999, was also zeroed out of the budget. Food safety receives special attention in both ARS and peer-reviewed programs. The ARS will receive $67 million for food safety research in 1999, up from the FY1998 figure of $55 million. Earmarks for peer-review food safety research jumped even higher, from $6 million in FY1998 to $17 million for FY1999. The National Institute of Standards and Technology's budget will decline slightly for FY1999, but research likely won't be affected, since the cuts were made to manufacturing partnerships and facility improvements--two areas where the agency requested less money than the previous year. NIST's overall budget of $647.1 million dips below FY1998's figure of $677.9 million. The Advanced Technology Program, which some conservative members of Congress have tried to eliminate the last two budget cycles, survives at $203.5 million. ATP received $192.5 million in FY1998. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will receive $2.166 billion, up $164 million from last year's total. The agency's two primarily peer review research programs also received slight increases. The Oceanic and Atmospheric Research program's budget for FY 1999 is $287 million, up from last year's figure of $278 million and the Sea Grant program will be funded at $57.5 million for FY1999, up from $56 million last year. A new research program pushed by the Clinton Administration, the Clean Water Program, receives $17 million for research into coastal waters. The EPA's R&D program will receive a slight increase, from $672 million in FY1997 to $683 for FY1999. However, that figure includes $37 million for an environmental research program conducted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. EPA's largest R&D program rose from $634 million in FY1998 to $650 million for FY1999. Interior's total budget will rise from last year's figure of $6.1 billion to $6.94 billion in FY1999, with most of the increases going to the national park system. The U.S. Geological Survey budget, within the DOI, rises to $797.896 million in FY1999, up from last year's figure of $538 million.

NIH, NSF Post Biggest Gains In FY 1999 Federal Budget

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