FY12 Spending Debate Comes to a Close

Congress completed, and the President signed into law, the FY12 appropriations bill. The $915 billion spending bill wraps up the remaining nine appropriations measures. The bill provides funding for programs at the Department of Health and Human Services, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Under the bill, the NIH funding for FY12 is $30.7 billion, which is $299 million over FY11. This represents a modest 0.8% increase over FY11. This is less than the 3.3% increase recommended by President Obama and the House Appropriations Committee but slightly more than the cut the Senate Appropriations Committee agreed to.

Funding for NIH’s largest institutes includes:

• National Cancer Institute (NCI): The conferees approved $5.082 billion for NCI, up 0.5% from $5.054 billion in FY11.
• National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID): NIAID funding would increase nearly 0.5%, or $24.236 million, from about $4.475 billion in FY11 to $4.499 billion in FY12.
• National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI): Conferees agreed to spend $3.085 billion for NHLBI, down 0.5%, or $16.617, million from FY11.
• National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS): The conferees approved NIGMS funding at $2.434 billion, an increase of $400 million over FY11.

The agreement does not include any transfer of NIH funding to the Global HIV/AIDS fund; all FY12 funding for the fund is included in the State-Foreign Operations portion of the conference agreement.

The conference agreement also includes language to implement the creation of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) and eliminate the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), transferring the various NCRR programs to other institutes and centers. The conferees also provided NCATS with up to $10 million for the Cures Acceleration Network.