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APS Science Policy Update
December 14, 2007
In this issue:
- Appropriations
- Peer Review in the Chronicle
- Science and the Next President
- NIH Extramural Nexus
Appropriations
Members of Congress continue to struggle to finish FY 2008 funding bills. At the moment, the remaining spending bills are being rolled into an omnibus measure but the total spending level has yet to be agreed upon by Congress and the Administration.
This update comes to us from Jon Retzlaff in the FASEB OPA:
“The proposal limits FY2008 spending to President Bush’s $933 budget request plus $3.7 billion for the Department of Veteran’s Affairs. It includes money for the wars without restrictions and provides emergency spending for border security, drought relief and other areas. According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the proposal funds many Democratic priorities, including medical research (however, we don’t know what this exactly means or how her statement will be translated into dollars) and education at the expense of President Bush’s priorities. In addition, earmarks remain, but would be reduced somewhat. At this point, the White House is withholding comment on the latest Democratic proposal until they see the actual bill and language, which is not expected to be made available until over the weekend. Appropriations staffers will be working through the weekend to finalize the package. I’m assuming that President Bush is going to insist on additional changes, such as increasing spending for his priorities and requesting that some of the funding designated as emergency spending be eliminated. We hope that there will be increases for NIH (since Ms. Pelosi cited medical research as a Democratic priority), as well as increases for NSF and DOE’s Office of Science (since it has been a priority for both Congress and the Administration). However, with $22 billion having been eliminated from bills initially drafted by Congress, it doesn’t seem very likely that the agencies we support will receive increases anywhere close to what we regard as necessary and essential. In fact, it still remains entirely possible that the entire package will fall apart; forcing Congress to adopt a year-long continuing resolution (CR), which many believe is what the Administration has been interested in from the beginning. Of course, a year-long CR would result in all agencies budgets being flat-funded at their FY2007 levels.”
Peer Review in the Chronicle
The Chronicle of Higher Education has published an online chat with NIH Director Dr. Elias Zerhouni about the revisions of the peer review process at NIH. The working group presented their findings to the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director on December 7, 2007 and pilot projects will begin early next year. http://chronicle.com/live/2007/12/zerhouni/
Science also ran an article on the peer review changes under consideration: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/318/5857/1708b
Science and the Next President
As Washington starts to look to the next Administration, discussions of policy priorities shift to the Presidential candidates. FASEB has launched an effort to get questions about scientific research into the Presidential debates (see You Tube videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ScienceCures) and another group of scientists and policy makers is pushing for an entirely science-focused debate: http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php?id=7.
NIH Extramural Nexus
To see the latest edition of the NIH’s Extramural Nexus newsletter, go to: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/partners/1107Nexus.htm
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