98011: Research and Development Funding: Fiscal Year 1999

Table of Contents for this section

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) FY1999 requested $13.465 billion, a $173 million decrease below the agency's FY1998 operating level of $13.638 billion. Of the total, $7.909 billion was for R&D, 4.2% below the FY1998 appropriation (see Table 4). NASA contended that the request fully funds all of the programs contained in the agency's strategic plan, and that internal changes and reforms allowed the agency to do more with less funding as part of its "faster, cheaper, better" philosophy. The Senate approved $8.044 billion, 1.7% above the request but 2.6% below FY1998 (S. 2168/S.Rept. 105-216). The House approved $7.822 billion, 1.1% below the request and 5.3% below FY1998 (H.R. 4194/H.Rept. 105-610). The final bill (P.L. 105-276/H.Rept. 105-749) provides $8.146 billion, 3.0% above the request but 1.25% below FY1998.

The International Space Station (ISS) continues to be the most significant issue facing NASA. The first components of ISS are currently scheduled for launch in 1998. Schedule delays, cost overruns, and uncertainty about Russia fulfilling its commitment to ISS have plagued the program in the past year. For FY1999, Congress is providing the requested amount for the ISS. It expressed considerable concern, however, about the project's status, and directed NASA to look for other ways to aid the Russian effort besides direct payments [For more information on ISS, see CRS Issue Brief 93017, Space Stations].

Congress also expressed support for NASA's basic research efforts and increased funding for the earth and space science programs by $102.6 million over the request for FY1999. In its version of the bill, the Senate expressed concern about the possibility that NASA's new "smaller, faster, better, cheaper" philosophy might be compromising the achievement of some scientific objectives, and directed NASA to study this issue and report back to the committee. The final bill added funds for the Next Generation Telescope and the Earth Orbiting System (EOS) AM-1 satellite. In addition, funds were added for a number of other projects specified in the conference report..

Table 4. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
($ millions)

Sources: NASA FY1999 Budget justification documents, S.Rept. 105-216, and H.R. 4194, H.Rept. 105-610. Figures do not include the space shuttle program and civil servant costs.

^a P.L. 105-174, the FY1998 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, allows NASA to transfer $53 million from its Mission Support account to space station and reallocate $37 million to station from within the Human Space Flight account. The total funding for station will be up to $2,441.3 million after this transfer and other reallocations.

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

FY1999 funding for NIH was finalized at $15.612 billion in the omnibus appropriations act (P.L. 105-277, "Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999," October 21, 1998), which incorporated the FY1999 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations act. Both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees had given strong support to NIH in reporting their Labor-HHS bills (H.R. 4274, H.Rept. 105-635, July 20, 1998, and S. 2440, S.Rept. 105-300, September 8, 1998), and the conference agreement gave NIH an even higher total. Originally, the President's request for NIH was $14.798 billion, an increase of $1.15 billion or 8.4% over the FY1998 appropriation of $13.648 billion. In June, adjustments to both the FY1998 and FY1999 amounts were announced as funds were moved within the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for the year 2000 computer conversion (FY1998) and for a White House initiative to combat biological and chemical terrorism (FY1999). The revised NIH figures became $13.622 billion for FY1998 and $14.763 billion for the FY1999 request (see Table 5). The House committee gave NIH a 9.1% increase over FY1998 to $14.862 billion, while the Senate committee allowed a 14.4% increase to $15.582 billion. The Senate committee also included another $40 million as an advance appropriation for FY2000 for an ongoing construction project. The final appropriation, at $15.612 billion for FY1999, is an increase of $1.99 billion (14.6%) over FY1998. An additional $40 million is provided for the advance construction appropriation.

NIH has received increases from Congress in the past two appropriations of 6.8% for FY1997 and 7.1% for FY1998. In the President's FY1999 request, the 8.4% increase was part of a 5-year proposal (the Research Fund for America) under which the NIH budget would grow to $20.2 billion by 2003, an increase of 48% over FY1998. Maintaining that growth rate would double NIH's budget in about 10 years, whereas the 14.6% increase of the FY1999 appropriation is closer to the 5-year doubling rate that has been called for in several legislative proposals. The President had proposed that the FY1999 increase be funded from expected tobacco settlement revenues, and some Members had expressed concern that the Administration's proposed priorities might not be sustainable if substantial new funding failed to materialize. Amounts from the congressional committees, however, were larger than the President's request even without new tobacco money. The House report said, "The Committee views NIH as one of its very highest priorities and has made difficult resource allocation decisions throughout the bill to provide what it believes is the necessary funding level for NIH." (p. 59)

The appropriation continues NIH's emphasis on support of extramural research, particularly basic research, through independent investigator-initiated research project grants. Funding in the appropriation is fairly consistent with the distribution recommended by NIH, with additional resources in some areas. Accounts that received funding considerably above the 14.6% average increase include institutes and centers focused on neurology, infectious diseases, genome research, research resources, international coordination, and some functions of the Office of the Director. For the most part, Congress did not direct NIH to fund particular research mechanisms, nor did it specify amounts for individual diseases. The Senate bill's earmark of $175 million for prostate cancer research was replaced with language from the conferees urging greater spending on prostate cancer. A new Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine was created in place of the Office of Alternative Medicine and given $50 million (up from $20 million) within the funding for the Office of the Director. The conferees noted NIH's intention to spend about $1.8 billion on AIDS research, but did not provide all of NIH's AIDS-related funds in a single account for the Office of AIDS Research (OAR), as the Administration had requested. Congress has preferred since FY1996 to appropriate AIDS funds to the institutes and centers; OAR then distributes the funds consistent with the AIDS research plan that OAR coordinates.

With its increased appropriation, NIH plans to highlight six cross-cutting areas of research that offer particularly promising opportunities: the biology of brain disorders, including neurodegenerative disorders; new approaches to pathogenesis (disease origins and development); new preventive strategies against disease; new avenues for development of therapeutics; genetic medicine; and advanced instrumentation and computers in medicine and research. The six areas are a framework for initiatives on specific diseases, notably cancer research and diabetes research. Other types of funding receiving substantial increases are initiatives to enhance the research infrastructure, including increases for research training, shared instrumentation, new sequencing and imaging technologies, advanced computing, and clinical research. Funding is included for construction of the new Clinical Research Center, a new vaccine research facility, and for extramural facilities construction grants.

No comprehensive reauthorization legislation for NIH was introduced in the 105^th Congress, but several measures that passed at the end of the second session included provisions to extend some expired authorities. During the Congress, several hearings were held on NIH priority-setting and resource allocation, including disease-specific funding, on coordination of NIH research across institutes, on scientific advances, and on clinical research issues. In July 1998, a study of NIH research priority setting, mandated by the FY1998 appropriations act, was released by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. It recommended that NIH incorporate more public input into the priority-setting process. For further information on NIH, see CRS Report 95-96, The National Institutes of Health: An Overview.

Table 5. National Institutes of Health (NIH)
($ in millions)

Source: Conference report on omnibus appropriations (H.Rept. 105-825); NIH FY1999 budget justifications.

^aFY1998 comparable reflects transfer of $25.5 million to DHHS for year 2000 conversion and other activities.

^bFY1999 revised request reflects net transfer of $34.5 million for the White House bioterrorism initiative.

^cFY1997 and FY1998 reflect comparable transfer of the Women's Health Initiative from Office of the Director to National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (FY1997: $56.4 million; FY1998: $54.7 million).

^dAll AIDS funding is shown distributed to the individual institutes, although the FY1999 request placed the money in a consolidated OAR account. Total AIDS spending, as reported by NIH, is shown in brackets. The FY1997, FY1998 and FY1999 appropriations acts did not specify amounts for AIDS.