Under new Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK), the House has stuck to its markup schedule for the twelve annual (FY 2025) appropriations bill. To date, many bills have been reported out of committee although nearly every vote has been party-line. Moreover, traditionally challenging bills, including the Labor-HHS-Education measure and Agriculture-FDA are set to be marked up by the House in mid-July, just ahead of the protracted summer recess.

Thus far, the politics and debate around the Houe measures has lined up with the previous year. Specifically, House conservatives are featuring bills that modestly increase Defense program spending while drastically cutting funding for Non-Defense programs. The Housse-advanced measures also include several polarizing “poison pill” policy riders.

The Senate has not announced a markup schedule yet but is hoping to provide guidance in July. Currently, the Senate is hoping for a process like last year as well where bills are advanced on a bipartisan basis. The main issues are resisting policy riders in the Senate measures and finding agreement on a balance between defense and non-defense spending where both accounts see some gains.

Federal medical research is currently facing a funding cliff due to the scheduled drawn down of mandatory funding provided by the 21^st Century Cures Act for flagship projects (such as the Cancer Moonshot). Additional funding is an issue for the authorizing committees in Congress (not appropriators) and is fueling activity around a new Cures 2.0 legislative package and NIH reauthorization. It is important to note though, that much like the funding cliff, these legislative efforts are more likely to take place in the 119^th Congress next year.

By: Dane Christiansen, Washington Representative