In Brief
Register Now for the Virtual Rally for Medical Research - Sept 22-23
Register now and join the Biophysical Society (BPS) and more than 300 national STEM organizations and professionals participate in the virtual Rally for Medical Research on September 22-23. The Rally is an opportunity to advocate to ensure that National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding continues to be a national priority and to raise awareness about the research it supports.
The proposed fiscal year 2022 budget released by President Biden just after Memorial Day is an ambitious one. With major increases proposed for federal agencies supporting basic and biomedical research. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a proposed budget of $51 billion; a $9 billion increase over FY21. Also included in this appropriation is a provision for $6.5 billion of the overall appropriation to establish a new agency within NIH, the proposed Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA‐H). The new proposed agency is being modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Participating BPS members will be scheduled for appointments based on their home address and be provided with all necessary talking points for the meeting. Register now to ensure that Congress provides a long-term plan for research funding. Registration for this event closes on August 30.
Make Policy Work for Science – Apply for the 2022-2023 BPS Congressional Fellowship Program
Have you ever considered how scientists can play an active role or a career in public policy? The BPS Congressional Fellowship is an opportunity to embed science into the daily work of House and Senate offices. Members of Congress rely on their staff to bring expertise and knowledge to all aspects of the work they are tasked with. Working in public policy may not be the obvious next step to a career focused on scientific research, but it can be invaluable to not only the policy, but also to how you approach your research and funding in future.
The Congressional Fellowship program is your opportunity to participate directly in the process or law-making that impacts how research is funded and regulated. This year-long opportunity provides a unique opportunity to work with a Member of Congress or committee and bring first-hand knowledge of science and scientific research to the public policy process.
BPS is now accepting applications for its Congressional Fellow for the 2022-2023 fellowship year. The BPS Congressional Fellowship is part of the esteemed AAAS Science and Technology Fellows program and open to Regular and Early Career members who are either U.S. citizens or hold a visa allowing them the right to work in the U.S.
Visit the website for more details about the program or contact Leann Fox at [email protected] or (240) 290-5606. The application deadline is December 10, 2021.
All Aboard the (7-bill) Minibus
On July 27, the House began consideration of HR 4502 the seven-bill “minibus” spending package that serves as a vehicle for the House’s fiscal year 2022. Included in the minibus are the appropriations bills for Labor-HHS-Education, Agriculture-FDA, Energy-Water Development, Financial Services, Interior-Environment, Military Construction and Transportation-Housing-Urban Development spending bills. The rule (HRes 555) providing for floor consideration of the minibus made 229 amendments to the legislation in order. Further votes are expected to continue over the next few days and could result in a few late nights in the chamber.
Alarm Officially Sounds on the Debt Ceiling
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sounded the alarm on the debt ceiling in a July 22 letter to Congress last Friday. Urging legislators to act quickly to raise or suspend the debt ceiling before the end of September, Yellen warned that there are “scenarios in which cash and extraordinary measures could be exhausted soon after Congress returns from recess.” The Senate is scheduled to return on September 13 and the House on September 20, leaving only ten days before the October 1 deadline to fund the federal government. The Congressional Budget Office said last week the effective date the debt ceiling is reached will likely be in October or November, but the balance of Treasury cash reserves and mandatory payments means that date could come earlier. Democrats can raise the debt limit without Republican votes via the budget reconciliation process but have not committed publicly to that approach.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said last week that he did not expect any Republican senator to vote for a debt limit increase, and that Democrats should move forward with the reconciliation process to raise the limit. However, the delays in finalizing a bipartisan infrastructure deal that can pass the Senate signal that Democrats could be hard-pressed to finish this process in the quickly closing window to avoid a Treasury default. Several Senate Republicans are seeking long-term concessions in exchange for voting to raise the debt limit and have proposed new measures to reduce both mandatory and discretionary federal spending.
ARPA-H Gets Put Under the Microscope
Rumors are circulating that President Biden’s proposal to create an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) with a $6.5 billion budget within the NIH is facing pushback from skeptical lawmakers and researchers. The worry being that the culture and bureaucracy of the sprawling biomedical research institutes would undermine the versatile agency envisioned by the president, or that too much of the agency’s funding would be duplicative of other existing research functions. Republicans have argued that the mission of translational science and cross-disciplinary development conceived for ARPA-H is better done by the private sector, while NIH’s mandate should remain basic science that can support other research. Proponents of the ARPA-H structure contend that it would facilitate collaboration and fill persistent research gaps between academia, private industry, and federal agencies.