Government
Senate panel follows House lead on HHS spending bill
■ But the Senate bill would provide $500 million less in 2010 to the National Institutes of Health than the measure adopted by the House.
By Doug Trapp — Posted Aug. 13, 2009
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Washington -- The Senate Appropriations Committee adopted a fiscal 2010 Health and Human Services spending bill that generally matches the House measure and exceeds some of President Obama's budget requests.
Committee members voted 29-1 on July 30 to adopt an HHS fiscal 2010 spending bill with $163 billion in discretionary spending, about $8 billion more than was allotted in fiscal 2009. It is also $2.4 billion more than Obama's request and the same level adopted by the House on July 24. Panel members offered no amendments before the vote.
The measure now heads to the Senate floor, but a Democratic committee aide did not expect a full Senate vote until September.The federal fiscal year 2010 begins on Oct. 1.
The House and Senate bills differ the most on National Institutes of Health funding. The Senate measure would provide $30.8 billion to NIH -- $500 million more than fiscal 2009 and $200 million more than Obama's request, but $500 million less than the House measure.
Sen. Tom Harkin (D, Iowa) chair of the Senate Appropriations health subcommittee, said the bill does not match the House's NIH funding increase because the stimulus act adopted in February provides $10 billion to NIH, including $1.3 billion for university facility renovation and expansion in 2010.
"So instead of providing even more increases to programs that did very well in the recovery act, this bill instead emphasizes several other important programs," he said. For example, the Senate Appropriations measure would increase funding for school renovation by $700 million, a provision left out of the stimulus act.
"It is never easy writing this bill. We had a lot of tough choices," Harkin said.
