Federal Update 2

March 11, 2009

CONGRESSIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
Congress completes FY09 budget process

Last night, the Senate passed the FY 2009 Omnibus Appropriations bill. The House had passed the $410 billion measure in late February. The bill provides funding through September 30, the end of FY 2009, for all federal agencies except Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs. The appropriations measures which fund programs through those agencies were enacted last fall. President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law immediately.

Highlights of the bill include:

Research --

• National Institutes of Health (NIH) -- The measure would fund NIH at $30.3 billion, a $938-million or 3.2-percent, increase over the FY08 level. Report language would make permanent PubMed Central. This is the NIH archive that provides free public access to accepted manuscripts reporting the results of research funded wholly or in part by NIH within 12 months after those results are published in a peer-reviewed journal. IU strongly supports PubMed Central and is working with AAU and other associations against legislation which has been introduced to kill the data archive.

• National Science Foundation (NSF) -- The FY09 omnibus package would provide $6.5 billion for NSF, an increase of $425 million, or seven percent, over FY08. Included in the total is $5.2 billion for Research and Related Agencies and $845 million for Education and Human Resources.
• NASA -- The space agency would receive $17.8 billion overall, or $473 million above the FY08 level. Included within the total are $4.5 billion for Science, $500 million for Aeronautics, $3.5 billion for Exploration Systems, and $169 million for Education.
• Department of Energy Office of Science -- The Office would receive $4.77 billion, which is $755 million, or nearly 19 percent, above the FY08 level. Within that total, $1.57 billion would go to Basic Energy Sciences, which includes $100 million, the amount contained in the budget request, for the new Energy Frontier Research Centers program. The bill also includes $15 million for a new Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA-E, at the Department of Energy.
• National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) -- The measure would provide NEH with $155 million, a 10.3-million, or seven percent, increase over FY08.

Student Aid --

• Pell Grants -- Funding for the Pell Grant program would increase to $17.3 billion, a $3-billion, or nearly 22-percent, increase over FY08. When combined with the Recovery Act funds and mandatory funds, the total maximum grant for school year 2009-10 would rise to $5,350.
• International Education Programs -- Funding for these programs would increase to $119 million, an increase of $10 million, or more than nine percent, above FY08 funding.

• GAANN and Javits Fellowships -- Funding for these two programs would increase to $41 million, an increase of $2 million, or four percent, over the FY08 level.