The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved an amendment to the FY09 budget resolution that calls for an extra $2.1 billion to the NIH budget.
If the budget resolution with this provision is passed by the full Senate, then the House and then the appropriations committees, it would mean the NIH budget would rise to $32.1 billion, an 8.4 percent increase over the president’s request, which had not taken into full account the biomedical inflation rate of 3.5 percent. The amendment was sponsored by Sens. Tom Harkin, IA, and Arlen Specter, PA, and passed by a vote of 95-4. Opposing it were Sens. Tom Carper, DE, Jim DeMint, SC , James Inhofe, OK, and Jon Kyl, AZ.
“The passage of this amendment sends a strong signal that NIH must become a priority once again,” says Research!America President Mary Woolley. “The message is a good one but could easily be derailed (as many of us know) at any point during the long appropriations process. We have a long way to go before this show of support becomes real money.”