Advocacy

News from the Hill: July 26, 2021

The House of Representatives worked diligently throughout July to markup all twelve annual appropriations bills and have them to the House floor ahead of the August congressional recess. Ultimately, the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 House appropriations bills and their corresponding committee reports reflected a strong commitment to medical research, public health, and patient care programs. This commitment was particularly apparent in the Labor-HHS-Education (L-HHS) spending bill, with meaningful investments in the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and related efforts. The FY 2022 House bill also maintains line-item funding for the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program, provides a $30 million funding increase, and includes clear instructions on utilization of CTSA funding and the maintenance of support for the hubs. The Senate is expected to mark up its FY 2022 appropriations bill after the August recess though with potentially more modest investments in medical research and public health.

The FY 2022 House L-HHS Appropriations Measure Proposes:

  • $10.57 billion for CDC, an increase of $2.7 billion over FY 2021.
  • $49.43 billion for NIH, an increase of $6.5 billion over FY 2021, which includes a discretionary increase of $3.5 billion for NIH along with $3 billion in dedicated funding to support the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) initiative.
  • $3.14 billion for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at NIH, an increase of $148.24 million over FY 2021.
  • $415 million for the Institutional Development Awards Program, an increase of $18.43 million over FY 2021.
  • $661.88 million for the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities at NIH, an increase of $271.01 million over FY 2021.
  • $88 million for the Research Centers at Minority Institutions Program, an increase of $8 million over FY 2021.
  • $897.81 million for the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at NIH, an increase of $42.39 million over FY 2021.
  • $616.18 million for the Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program, an increase of $29.35 million over FY 2021.
  • $380 million for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), an increase of $42 million over FY 2021.

Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program.— The Committee includes $616,183,000 for the CTSA Program, an increase of $29,342,000 above the fiscal year 2021 enacted level and $14,683,000 above the fiscal year 2022 budget request. The Committee notes that while the CTSA program works to advance the full spectrum of medical research and modernize our research enterprise, as demonstrated by the CTSAs being a driving force behind the Federal effort to rapidly develop COVID–19 treatments, diagnostic tools, and vaccines. Central to the ongoing success of the CTSA consortium are individual CTSA hubs that form a nationwide network. The Committee directs NCATS to maintain the current size of the core awards supporting CTSA hubs, including the institutional partners that are part of the hubs, and historic structure of the CTSA program. This ongoing approach reflects the central role of the hubs, including each hub’s partners, as critical national research infrastructure and the core of the CTSA Consortium. The Committee reiterates previous guidance that NCATS duly inform the Committee of any planned changes to the size of awards, scope of the program, or strategic direction of emerging or ongoing CTSA initiatives. Further, NIH is encouraged to further integrate the CTSA program into cross-agency initiatives that can leverage the full spectrum of medical research for progress on a variety of contemporary topics.