US Spending Bill to Provide New Funds for Science and Health

The legislation, passed by the House of Representatives yesterday, will increase research agencies’ budgets by around 5 percent in 2022 and support the creation of a new health agency.

Written byCatherine Offord

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Update (March 15): The budget has now been signed into law by US president Joe Biden, according to CBS News , averting a partial government shutdown.

A spending bill passed yesterday by the US House of Representatives will, if enacted, increase the federal research budget and help launch a new health agency, among other initiatives. The plans, described in a 2,741-page document, would end a spending freeze that had prevented agencies from expanding their programs since last fall, Science reports, although some of the increases fall short of scientists’ hopes.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is slated to receive $8.8 billion in 2022, a 4 percent increase on its previous budget. President Joe Biden’s administration had requested a 20 percent increase, according to Science.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will see an overall increase of around 5 percent, to a total budget of $45 billion, Science reports. The bill also ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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