Pending legislation in Congress would substantially reduce the growth of the federal budget for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The House and Senate are considering separate plans that would limit budget growth to a few percentage points, following a five-year campaign that doubled the NIH budget with annual 15 percent increases.

The Senate plan calls for an FY2004 budget of $28.2 billion, an increase of $1 billion, or 3.8 percent. The House version calls for an increase of 2.7 percent. Among the high priorities in either bill would be NIH basic and applied research, and biodefense research.

In late June, the House approved the appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security, which will become one of the major sources of research and development activities. The bill included $900 million for R&D--nearly double the current funding level--and $890 million for the non-R&D Project Bioshield to procure biodefense countermeasures, including $35 million for university programs.

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American Association for the Advancement of Science