FY 2005 Budget Proposal Falls Short For Research 

Facing an expensive war in Iraq, pressure from fiscal conservatives in Congress, and a soaring federal budget deficit, President George Bush unveiled his FY 2005 budget plan on February 2, 2004. Unfortunately, Mr. Bush's promise to hold the line on federal spending came at the expense of biomedical research and other domestic programs.

The article below provides highlights of the FY 2005 budget proposal for selected biomedical research agencies. The accompanying article describes final FY 2004 spending levels that were approved by the 108th Congress on January 23, 2004.

National Institutes of Health 

With an election year looming at the end of 2004 and the deficit rising, the Administration was looking for ways to keep spending down. The President is proposing a $28.7 billion budget for NIH in FY 2005. This is a 2.6% increase or $900 million over the FY 2004 level. After enjoying double-digit budget increases from FY 1998 through FY 2003, NIH came in for a hard landing in FY 2004 with a budget increase of only 2.8%, and the FY 2005 proposal continues this trend by recommending another minimal increase.

Under President Bush's budget proposal, NIH would fund 258 additional research project grants (RPGs), but this growth in grant numbers means cuts in the size of grants. The proposed budget would allow NIH to fund a total of 10,393 new and competing awards. This is a 2.5% increase over FY 2004.

However, to help shore up grant numbers, the NIH is squeezing the size of the grants. The new batch of NIH grants will be only 1% bigger than this year's (continuing grants will grow by 1.9%), which is well below the projected inflation rate for biomedical research costs of about 3.5%. The total number of grants including 27,351 ongoing projects would be 37,744 grants in FY 2005.

Last year, NIH Director Elias Zerhouni unveiled his Roadmap Initiative. Under the FY 2005 budget, this project is allocated $237 million, an increase of $109 million over FY 2004. Of this total, the Office of the Director would receive $60 million (up from $35 million in FY 2004). These are funds Zerhouni can distribute. The remaining $177 million is to come from NIH institutes and centers, each of which would contribute .63% of its budget to Roadmap projects.

The budget plan also recommends funding levels for three Roadmap initiatives. New Pathways to Discovery would get $137 million, Multidisciplinary Research Teams for the Future would be funded at $39 million and Re-engineering the Clinical Research Enterprise would receive $61 million.

In response to the possible threat of bioterror attacks, the FY 2005 budget includes $1.7 billion for bioterror countermeasures. This is an increase of $121 million or 7.5% over FY 2004. Within that amount $150 million is targeted for construction of an additional 20 Biolevel 3 laboratories at universities and research institutes across the country.

In an effort to boost funding for the NIH, APS joined with FASEB and the Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research Funding in calling on the President and Congress to keep the momentum of the doubling alive by providing NIH with $30.6 billion in FY 2005 to provide a 10% increase over FY 2004 levels. In late February, Congress had its first chance to declare its budget priorities when the Senate Budget Committee met to mark up its FY 2005 budget resolution. The budget resolution sets broad spending targets intended to guide the appropriations process.

The Senate Budget Committee's original draft resolution contained $9 billion less than the President's budget for non-defense spending -including NIH. Calling upon the Senate to correct this deficiency, FASEB President Robert Wells asked the Senate Budget Committee to add more money for scientific research. "If we reduce our commitments to scientific research," he said in a press statement, "We compromise our future prosperity."

Senate biomedical research champion Arlen Specter (R-PA) took the lead in seeking an increase. When the budget resolution came to the floor, Sen. Specter offered an amendment to increase funding for the NIH by an additional $1.3 billion to bring the resolution's overall allocation for the NIH to approximately $29.9 billion. This would be an increase of 7.2% over FY 2004 levels. In the early morning hours of March 12th, Senator Specter's amendment passed by a margin of 72-24. The additional funds are scheduled to come from a one-sixth of one percent cut in travel and administrative expenses throughout the federal government. Because the budget resolution is only a blueprint for the appropriators to follow when assigning money to government programs, the Specter amendment-while a positive step forward-does not guarantee that NIH will ultimately get a 7.2% increase.

As of this writing, the House Budget Committee has not scheduled a mark-up of its budget resolution.

National Science Foundation 

The National Science Foundation (NSF) also saw a smaller proposed budget increase in the President's budget plan. Under Bush's proposal, the NSF would receive $5.7 billion in FY 2005. This is a 3% increase or $167 million over FY 2004 levels. This falls well short of the $7.3 billion that would be needed to bring about a five year doubling of the NSF budget, a goal both the president and Congress endorsed in the NSF reauthorization bill that the president signed in December 2002.

The NSF's Research and Related Activities (R&RA) account overall would receive $4.5 billion, a 4.7% increase or $201 million more than FY 2004. However the Biological Sciences Directorate (BIO) would receive an increase of only 2.2%.

The small increases for the research directorates would squeeze NSF funding of competitively awarded research grants This year NSF expects to fund only 6,145 research grants, a decline of 72 from this year's expected total. The BIO directorate would be able to fund 2.6% fewer grants than FY 2004.

VA Medical and Prosthetic Research 

The President's FY 2005 budget proposal includes $770 million for VA Medical and Prosthetics Research. Of that total, however, only $385 million will go towards the direct costs of research. This is a decrease of 5.1% or $20.6 million less than FY 2004 levels.

The FASEB Consensus Conference and the Friends of VA Medical Care and Health Research (FOVA) are recommending an FY 2005 funding level of $460 million for the direct cost of research. This would represent $52 million or 13% increase over the FY 2004 funding level.

NASA  

On January 14th, 2004, President Bush unveiled his new space exploration policy called "A Renewed Spirit of Discovery." This plan calls for completing the International Space Station by 2010, replacing the shuttle with a new crew vehicle and establishing an extended presence on the moon to serve as a launching point for future human space flight missions to far off places, such as Mars.

The FY 2005 budget reflects these near-term priorities. NASA's FY 2005 budget is $16.2 billion, a 5 % increase over FY 2004. However, nearly most of the increase will go for the non-R&D priority of making safety improvements needed to return the shuttle to flight and construction on the international space station.

Under President Bush's FY 2005 budget, NASA's Office of Biological and Physical Research would get $1 billion, an increase of 6% over FY 2004.