U.S. Lawmakers Raise Budget Of National Science Foundation

Congressional spending panels delivered sharply different messages this week to the two biggest US federal research agencies as lawmakers began to get serious about passing a federal budget for the 2024 fiscal year that begins on October 1, Jeffrey Mervis and Jocelyn Kaiser reported for Science.

Photo Insert: Panels in the House of Representatives and Senate agreed to give the National Science Foundation (NSF) more money even as advocates expected Republicans to clip federal spending.

Panels in the House of Representatives and Senate agreed to give the National Science Foundation (NSF) more money even as advocates expected Republicans to clip federal spending.

The much larger National Institutes of Health (NIH) took a beating in the Lower House. A House panel’s proposed 5.9% reduction to NIH’s $47.4 billion budget would represent a decline of $2.8 billion and lead to “glaring cuts to vital research,” warns Research!America.

Funding for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, created last year and a priority of President Joe Biden’s administration, would fall from $1.5 billion to $500 million in 2024 under the House plan.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would see its budget decline by 17%, to $7.6 billion.

The bill contains three funding bans favored by conservatives. One would bar federal spending for research using fetal tissue from elective abortions.

A second would block funding for EcoHealth Alliance, which has taken heat for collaborating with Wuhan virologists that some blame for the COVID-19 pandemic. The third would prohibit support for gain-of-function research that can make risky viruses more dangerous.

Lobbyists are counting on a Senate panel to deliver better news later.

“We’re hoping that the Senate number for NIH … is an increase above 2023,” says Jennifer Zeitzer, public affairs director for the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Biden had proposed a 2% boost for NIH in his 2024 budget request, with much of the increase going to cancer research.

WEEKLY FEATURE : MVP Group Keeps Lights On During Pandemic