Research Funds Bonanza Going Up in Smoke?

T he Senate's snuffing of anti-tobacco legislation last month also extinguished some optimism for increased science funding for fiscal year 1999, which begins Oct. 1, 1998. "It's definitely a setback," Mary Woolley, president of Research!America, admits. President Bill Clinton had earmarked some of the anticipated revenue from proposed increases in cigarette taxes to pay for a boost in biomedical research funding. Without that revenue, Research!America's goal of doubling biomedical research funding in five years becomes more difficult (P. Smaglik, The Scientist, 11[22]:1, Nov. 10, 1997). Even with higher cigarette taxes, that goal would have been challenging. Doubling research requires a 15 percent boost in the National Institutes of Health's budget from FY 1999 to FY 2003; President Clinton has requested an 8.4 percent increase for NIH in FY 1999--a figure that includes projected revenue from tobacco. Some Republicans had been critical of the budgeting that anticipated cigarette revenue for research. "By spending money that may not exist, the president is putting funding for his new focus on science in jeopardy," House Science Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner (R.-Wis.) commented after the president released his budget in February (B. Agnew, The Scientist, 12[6]:1, March 16, 1998). Because of that relationship, science policy watchers had been wary of celebrating a research windfall, despite what appeared to be a favorable FY 1999 budget. "In the president's budget, the increases for science funding are contingent on tobacco's money," Al Teich told The Scientist prior to the bill's inability to receive cloture--a procedural maneuver necessary to advance a piece of debated legislation to a vote--June 17. Even if the bill had sailed through the Senate and navigated the House, its final passage wouldn't necessarily have meant an R&D bonanza, notes Teich, director of science and policy programs at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Teich isn't so sure the death of the bill will also be the demise of a science boost. "I don't think Congress was going to give that money to research anyway," he posits. "They were talking about giving that money to anything but research." Congress' reticence to use the tobacco money for research puts the president in a tight position if he is serious about science. "He's got to come up with some formal proposals--which means cuts in other programs," says Teich. Competition for cash is already fierce. President Clinton wants to use any surplus provided by a strong economy to save Social Security. Republicans want a tax cut. Both Democrats and Republicans want (and have received) more money for transportation--meaning less may be available for other programs. "It's going to be difficult to allocate the money to research when there's so many other potential issues," Teich observes. That difficulty will become even greater now that the projected revenue from the bill's proposal to increase taxes on cigarettes $1.10 over five years has failed to materialize. Competition among interests will intensify now that the pot of money has shrunk. Sen. Connie Mack (R.-Fla.) supported earlier legislation that would have used some of a $368.5 billion settlement with the tobacco industry for research. However, Congress never got the money to spend, because the industry pulled out of the agreement this spring after Congress refused to grant the industry immunity from lawsuits. In a prepared statement, Mack emphasizes he still supports biomedical funding--and many of the failed bill's other goals--but he didn't vote for it because too many unrelated amendments were attached to the legislation. "The bill in its current form has been entangled with all sorts of special interest pressures, and using tobacco revenues for medical research and health-related programs has been undermined to a point where I could no longer support this legislation," the statement reads. Sen. Phil Gramm (R.-Texas), who supports doubling all R&D funding over 10 years, also voted against cloture. Prominent Democratic backers of science funding, including Sens. Edward Kennedy (D.-Mass.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), voted for advancing the legislation. One White House science official acknowledges that the administration had anticipated money from the tobacco legislation but insists all is not lost for science. "That does not mean we can't find offsets in other areas," the official, who spoke to The Scientist on condition of anonymity, said. Offsets--reductions in spending in other areas to balance proposed increases--are necessary under the balanced budget agreement in order to keep overall federal funding on the course of deficit reduction. The official insists science funding could rise from the ashes of the failed legislation in the form of a less ambitious law, perhaps one with lower taxes and fewer amendments. Mack also has not ruled out the possibility of another piece of tobacco legislation, according to spokespeople. Teich and Woolley suspect that tobacco legislation will resurface, along with new hope for science funding. She notes that this is an election year and lawmakers who voted in favor of the tobacco industry may face a tough time at the polls this fall. "People don't want to run against this issue," Woolley concludes.

Research Funds Bonanza Going Up in Smoke?

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