Volume 25, Issue 11
June 12, 2006
SPENDING BILLS MOVE FORWARD IN HOUSE; SENATE ABOUT TO BEGIN
Spurred on by appropriations committee chairman Rep. Jerry Lewis’ goal that the House pass all its FY 2007 appropriations bills by July 4; seven of the twelve have emerged from that body. With the conference agreement on the FY 2006 supplemental spending reached on June 8, which included a provision deeming the spending cap for the Senate’s appropriations bills, that body will soon begin its consideration of the FY 2007 funding legislation. Despite this, nobody expects enactment of all the bills by the time Congress adjourns in October for the 2006 elections.
The House has completed action on the bills funding Agriculture and Rural Development, Homeland Security, Energy and Water, Interior and Environment, Legislative Branch, and Military Quality of Life and Veterans’ Affairs and Foreign Operations. The two largest bills – Defense and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education – were marked up by their respective subcommittees on June 7 and are expected to go before the full appropriations panel the week of June 12. The State, Science, Commerce, Justice bill, which includes funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF), Census Bureau, National Institute of Justice (NIJ), and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), is scheduled for subcommittee markup on June 14.
The Senate will soon allocate its $873 billion for discretionary spending, same total as the House, among its subcommittees and the mark-up process will begin. There is still some dispute over the fate of the extra $7 billion Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) put in the budget resolution (see UPDATE, March 20, 2006) to help increase funding for NIH and education. Since a final budget resolution was never enacted, some informal arrangements will be necessary to preserve the additional funding.
LABOR, HHS EDUCATION NUMBERS FROM HOUSE SPENDING SUBCOMMITTEE
On June 7, the House Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee approved its version of the FY 2007 spending bill, via party-line vote, providing $141.9 billion, an increase of $712 million or 0.5 percent above the FY 2006 funding level, and $4.136 billion more than the President’s request.
The bill flat funds the National Institutes of Health (NIH) at a level equal to the President’s request of $28,258 billion and a decrease of $306,000 from the FY 2006 funding level.
In the statement released following the vote of 9-7, the Subcommittee notes that the “bill fully supports the peer review approach to the distribution of medical research grants by essentially following the NIH’s recommended funding distribution among the various institutes.”
The measure provides $6.1 billion in funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), $27.5 million below the FY 2006 funding level and $239.6 more than the President’s request. The bill level funds the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) at $319 million, consistent with the President's request. This year, however, the bill provides the money via direct appropriations rather than through Public Health Service evaluation funds.
The bill is scheduled to go before the full Appropriations Committee on June 13.
House Panel Provides No Funding
For National Security Language Initiative
In early January, President Bush ballyhooed, as part of a major national security effort, a major new initiative to provide funding to increase the United States’ capacity in less commonly taught languages. Americans’ learning Chinese, Korean, Urdu, and other languages became an imperative to help the nation face looming foreign threats. The Department of Education’s (ED) budget included $24 million in new funds for its role in the initiative. However, the House Subcommittee decided not to fund the new program. In addition, it level funded the already existing International Education and Foreign Language Title VI programs, rejecting the Administration’s request to increase them by $1 million from last year.
The Subcommittee continued the Javits Fellowship program at last year’s level of $9.7 million. As it has done in the past, the panel zeroed-out the Thurgood Marshall Legal Education Opportunity program. In recent years, the Senate, against the House and the Administration’s wishes, has restored the modest funding for this program. The Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) saw its budget yo-yo up again from the $22 million FY 2006 and FY 2007 requested level to a recommended $91.2 million. Although the Committee report has not yet been released, this significant increase for this program suggests last year’s elimination of earmarking for this agency may be a one-year moratorium.
The Institute of Education Sciences’ research, development, and dissemination account remained stable at $162.6 million, while the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) received its requested $3 million increase to $93 million. The Subcommittee also agreed with the Administration and increased the assessment account by $4 million to $92.1 million, but rejected the full requested increase for the Statewide Data Systems, agreeing to a $10.5 million boost to $35 million, rather than the $54.6 million asked for by the White House.
The panel recommended $565.3 million for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a $28.2 million boost from FY 2006 and $2 million more than the request. This additional increase will go to the Employment and Unemployment Statistics account.TOP
NIH: AN AGENCY AT A ‘CROSSROADS’
According to Elias Zerhouni, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the NIH “benefits from the advice of over 30,000 advisors every year. It is the agency that consults the most,” he declared, opening the 92nd Advisory Council to the Director (ACD) on June 2. In his legislative update to the Council Zerhouni noted that there is “still talk on the Hill of reauthorization” of the NIH, explaining that the Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), continues to believe that the agency needs to be reauthorized.
As he has done while visiting the various advisory councils of the NIH’s 27 institutes and centers (ICs), Zerhouni explained to the ACD that the NIH is at a “Crossroads.” The agency is facing changes in its budget along with other factors that require the ACD to evaluate and advise the NIH on its analysis of the situation and on next steps for the agency.
Zerhouni emphasized that it is very important that they understand the factors the agency is experiencing and what internally the NIH staff calls the “Perfect Storm.” To begin with, Zerhouni reported that the NIH’s budget is being affected by matters such as the federal and trade deficits along with defense and homeland security needs which have primarily driven the policy of the government.
He stressed that there are also the unpredicted factors of Hurricane Katrina and the possible bird pandemic flu. In addition, there are other concerns that the agency has to manage, which Zerhouni described as “the post-doubling effect” and are less defined: 1) Budget fatigue and a focus on the physical sciences, a focus that conflicts with the post-doubling era; 2) High expectations from the doubling of the agency’s budget; and 3) Underneath all of those factors is the question of where is the NIH going. What has the doubling done for the country? It is a question that is being constantly asked by policy makers.
On top of all of those concerns, Zerhouni contended, the agency has to deal with the biomedical research inflation which is 3 – 5 percent and is higher than general inflation as a result of having a “very strong component of personnel in the agency’s costs,” he explained. It is calculated by the Department of Commerce (DOC).
It is one of the most difficult environments the agency has ever operated in, he indicated, reflecting on his conversations with Ruth Kirschstein, who has worked at NIH for several decades and served as the Acting Director for the agency for nearly two years directly prior to his appointment.
According to Zerhouni, this environment is well captured in a quote from former NIH Associate Director Research and Training William F. Raub who said in a 1982 strategy paper that “Competition for funds from the NIH and other sponsors, intensifying year by year, now stands at an unprecedented level, and shows no sigh of abating. Never before have so many established investigators faced so much uncertainty about their longevity as active scientists. Never before have so many novices faced so many disincentives to entering or continuing a research career.”
He recounted that he feels that distress whenever he goes around the country speaking with scientists. He says that he is amazed at the “tremendous anxiety, frustrationd and anger” he witnesses when he communicates with investigators in the field. It is something that “NIHers have lived before and we know what happens when these things happen” he shared.
The Main Drivers
The NIH director says that he is astounded with the number of analyses and the reasons bandied about regarding the state of the NIH. He shared his analysis of the state of the agency with the Committee. It is one that is based on data accumulated since 2002 and 2003 when he was appointed director of the NIH, he explained. According to Zerhouni, one of the first things he did as director was to ask each of the ICs to produce a five-year forecast and analyze the trends each IC was dealing with. Based on this data, three factors explain 98 percent of the issues, related Zerhouni. They are what he called the “main drivers.”
The number one “overwhelming driver” he explained is the “large capacity building throughout U.S. research institutions and the increase in the number of new faculty.” To illustrate what he calls an informal competition among institutions, he noted the number of cranes on the campuses of medical schools and how that number reflects the school’s status. When you have a 15 -16 percent stimulus, “it changes the free-market of decision-making.” he explained.
The second driver impacting the state of NIH is that the agency has been receiving appropriations below the inflation rate since 2003 and the completion of the doubling of its budget. For instance, the NIH received a 3 percent increase in FY 2004, a 2 percent increase in FY 2005, and was flat funded in FY 2006. The biomedical inflation in 2004, on the other hand, was approximately 5 percent. The increases in the agency’s budget, Zerhouni explained, “are not enough to sustain the purchasing power of the NIH’s budget.”
The doubling of the budget, according to the NIH director, has done what it was supposed to do and that is to “increase the capacity for research.” “What the Nation wanted was expanded research capacity, not just to double the budget of everything [the NIH] did before, but to create new fields.” While we should be happy that the institutions responded to that call, it “is also the source of the tension we feel.” It’s a demand and supply issue, Zerhouni contended.
According to the NIH data, during the entire doubling period the agency received more than 8,300 competing grant applications. In the two years following the end of the doubling, the demand for grants almost doubled. “We had more incremental demand for grants than we did in the total years of the doubling,” Zerhouni maintained. That demand is the result of an increased number of applicants from new scientists, he further explained.
There was “a great period when the budget was increasing 16 percent a year but there was no corresponding increase in demand for the first four years of the doubling,” Zerhouni observed. Then “all of a sudden there was a marked increase in demand – a temporal shift – particularly in the two years post-doubling.” In FY 2007, Zerhouni stated that the agency expects 49,000grant applications “which will exactly double the number of applications” the NIH received in 1998. In addition, the cost of each grant has risen from $250,000 to $350,000, a 40 percent increase.
The third driver is what Zerhouni termed the “budget cycling phenomenon,” where the funding from expired grants is recycled in the budget pool to provide the funding for new grants. The “bottom line,” Zerhouni explained, is that the demand for grants “took off” just as the NIH budget was “landing.” The post doubling “boom” in applications has contributed to the imbalance the agency is experiencing.
Common Myths and Misperceptions Operating Against NIH
Zerhouni told the ACD that there are common misperceptions and myths about the NIH of which they need to be aware. The most common misperception, he insisted, is that the NIH is overemphasizing applied research. Looking at the data collected since 1998, Zerhouni explained that basic research seemingly dipped in 2003 because 20 percent of NIH’s budget was being directed toward biodefense in response to 9/11. In addition, in 2003, the agency had a number of one-time expenditures where the dollars were then re-circulated in 2004 and 2005. He highlighted the fact that despite the lackluster increase in NIH’s annual appropriation in FY 2004, the agency did not feel the full impact as a result of these managerial decisions.
A second common misperception, Zerhouni noted, is that the agency is shifting towards solicited research with too many requests-for-applications (RFAs). This is the result of people not looking at the relationship, the percentage, between the budget and the number of initiatives, he stressed. As a result of the budget increases, the absolute number of RFAs and program announcements (PAs) go up, so you get the perception that there are more initiatives, he pointed out.
A third misperception is that the NIH Roadmap is shifting major funds away from the grant pool, Zerhouni indicated. He says that he is “frankly, puzzled by this.” He insisted that the Roadmap is not taking away funding from other projects and grants. Developed in 2003, the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research was “created to help facilitate synergy across NIH.” The most important factor that people miss about the Roadmap is that it is a series of initiatives set up to last anywhere between five and ten years. It is balanced, “40 percent translational, 40 percent basic, and 20 percent high impact research,” he emphasized. He also revealed that more than 345 individual Roadmap awards were made in FY 2005 to 133 institutions.
A fourth misperception, Zerhouni noted, is about the payline and that it is the cut off line for funding grants. He explained that the payline is the percentile score for which 99 percent of the grants will be funded. But if you have twice as many applicants, he explained, it is clear that high quality applications are going to be found in the lower percentile scores. But there is, however, always a higher success rate than the payline because no institute has a zero percent funding for things that are beyond the payline score. In addition, the success rate per applicant understates funding rates per applicant, he further explained, noting that many researchers apply for more than one grant.
Adaptive Strategies Required
Where does the NIH go from here is the question, Zerhouni asked. The agency, he stressed, must develop adaptive strategies. He shared with the ACD the key principles that are driving the NIH’s response right now.
First, the NIH must protect its core values and mission – “discovery and new knowledge.” Second, the NIH must protect its future: new investigators. Every IC is taking steps to protect the new investigator, he informed the ACD, referencing the newly created Pathways to Independence program the agency plans to institute in FY 2007. The third principle is to identify the main drivers of the situations and manage them. For the NIH it is the supply and demand of grants, he stressed.
The situation such as the one NIH is in always causes a vacuum of information, Zerhouni explained. Accordingly, the fourth principle emphasizes the need for NIH to communicate proactively. He pointed out that it is important to focus the message on the value for investment and the “need for sustainability.” He noted his testimony before the Senate in which he attempted to get the message across that “medical research is a marathon.” There is a need to manage the expectations of quick return in science along with the need to educate policy makers about the maturation of science. This requires the community as well as the NIH, he stressed. Finally, the fifth principle calls for the NIH to have a vision for the future and share that vision. The most important message is the need to maintain a balanced portfolio, Zerhouni concluded.
Is Peer Review Becoming Too Conservative?
Responding to Zerhouni’s question to the ACD regarding “what else” would the Committee have NIH consider, ACD member David Botstein, Princeton University, noted that a “prominent cause for anxiety is a pretty general concern about the quality of the peer review.” He acknowledged that there was not a concern 10 years ago, but it “has clearly built up.” Acknowledging the “serious attempt” to revise it, Botstein indicated that he “is not sure the community is convinced that peer review is working the way that it is supposed to now.” He also noted that he is hearing that “study sections are looking for mistakes rather than good ideas.”
Referencing Botstein’s comment, newly appointed ACD member Alan Leshner (CEO, AAAS and former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse) added that as success rates have gone down, “are we at risk getting more conservative with regard to peer review so that the most innovative high-risk research is having an even harder time than ever before.” Pioneer awards, Leshner emphasized are not going to do it. “How do we deal with the inherent conservatism of a tight budget,” he asked.
On June 6, the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information and International Security Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held a hearing to examine the rising costs of the 2010 census.
In the hearing entitled “Census 2010, Off-line and Off-budget: The High Cost of Low-tech Counting,” Subcommittee Chairman Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) asserted that behind the U.S Census data collection is a “steadily increasing price tag which until recently has managed to stay below the radar of Congress.” “Costs are spiraling upward at a startling rate,” said Coburn. “This is all part of the disturbing trend in recent decades which witnessed dramatic cost increases from one census to the next.”
At the present time the 2010 census is projected to cost roughly 12 billion dollars; an 80 percent increase over the 2000 census. U.S. Census Bureau Director, Louis Kincannon, provided an overview of the reengineered 2010 decennial program, emphasizing that it is the Bureau’s “largest activity and highest budget priority.”
Kincannon illustrated the three integrated components of which the 2010 decennial program is comprised: the American Community Survey (ACS), the Masters Address File (MAF) and the TIGER Enhancement Program. The ACS, which was fully implemented last year with the support of Congress, replaces the long form of the decennial census. Kincannon testified that the ACS is the most important evolution for the decennial census in over 60 years, whereas the long-form data used in the past was costly and undermined the Bureau’s efforts to conduct a basic enumeration.
The reengineered decennial program aims to improve the relevance and timeliness of census long-form data through the ACS; reduce operational risk; improve the accuracy of census coverage; and contain costs.
A June 6 report released by the Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) on the Bureau’s cost projection found that the most recent life-cycle cost estimate for the 2010 Census does not reflect the most current information from testing and evaluation and does not provide complete information on how changing assumptions may affect cost. GAO’s Brenda S. Farrell testified before the subcommittee and stressed that “the decennial’s cost and risks must be closely monitored and evaluated with mitigation plans in place to help ensure that accurate results are delivered on time and within projected costs.”
To increase the transparency of the census’ life-cycle cost for Congress, the GAO recommended that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) establish triggers that would signal when the annual 2010 Census costs and/or life-cycle 2010 Census costs exceeded some predetermined amount.
Along with the concern for transparency, Coburn inquired about the Bureau’s decision not to pursue an online option for use in 2010. He contended that providing an internet response option would deflect the cost of the 2010 and future censuses and improve the response rate. Coburn referred to the Bureau’s unwillingness to further explore an Internet option for the decennial census as a “cultural problem,” whereby the Census Bureau is “operating under an early 20th century mentality when pen and paper was the only tool available.”
“The census bureau is lagging behind, needlessly adding to its already high-cost and time delay” said Coburn. Kincannon responded that the Bureau has considered other data collection methods including the Internet. “Based on our research, as well as our own experience and knowledge of the experiences of other countries, we do not believe Internet data collection would significantly improve the overall response rate or reduce field data collection.”
Both parties agreed that providing an online option would not be cost free. The 2010 Census is prepared to move forward to refine the use of GPS equipped hand-held computers, and as a replacement, a second mailing of the questionnaires to non-responding households. “A successful census is more than a technical achievement; it is the creation of a national resource that empowers decision makers,” concluded Kincannon.
The Chairman clarified that he does not doubt the work ethic of the Bureau, but in order to fix the budgetary problem the subcommittee has to look very closely at all of the federal agencies under its jurisdiction, not just the census. Before each census the Bureau conducts a dress rehearsal to fine-tune operations under census-like conditions. The dress rehearsal for Census 2010 will take place in 2008.
The Bureau Releases Special Products for the Gulf Coast Area
On June 7, the Census Bureau released two special data products for the Gulf-Coast: the 2005 American Community Survey Special Product for the Gulf Coast Area and the January 1, 2006 Special Population Estimates for the Gulf Coast Area. Both data products describe changes the local population and economies have experienced in the areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The hurricanes created unique circumstances and challenges for survey operations in the affected Gulf Coast areas. The Census Bureau used special resources, methods, and procedures to collect and process the data to develop these two products. These special population estimates are designed to provide information and indicators of the effect of the events on the population size of the impacted counties.
Although the ACS was not designed to produce estimates based on less than a full year of data, the unprecedented effects of the Hurricanes led to release for the affected areas for the first eight months (January-August) of 2005 and the last four months (September-December) of 2005.
Some data highlights are as follows:
- The household populations in the impacted counties in the immediate Gulf Coast Area decreased from their July 2005 estimate. At the same time, many of the counties to the north in the impacted areas experienced population gains.
- In Louisiana, the household population in the combined three parishes of New Orleans, St. Bernard, and Planquemines declined by over 348,000 people from July 2005 to January 2006.
- The Mississippi Gulf Coast counties (Hancock, Harrison, and Jackson) lost a combined total of nearly 50,000 people form their household population of 367,019 on July 1, 2005.
For more information on these special products visit www.census.gov.
NSF COALITION HOLDS ANNUAL EXHIBITION
The Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF), an alliance of over 100 organizations which support the goal of increasing the national investment in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) research and education programs in response to the unprecedented scientific, technological, and economic opportunities facing the United States, held its 12th Annual Exhibition on June 7.
The Capitol Hill event highlighted the results of NSF-funded research. This year there were 34 booths representing all the sciences funded by the Foundation. The evening’s attendees included: several members of Congress, NSF Director Arden Bement, NSF Deputy Director Kathie Olsen, and hundreds of congressional staff.
Six social and behavioral science research projects were on display. the American Educational Research Association and the American Psychological Association sponsored Marcia Linn of the University of California, Berkeley, who exhibited her research on Technology-Enhanced Learning in Science; and the American Sociological Association brought Karl Alexander of the Johns Hopkins University to present The Beginning School Study: Life Course Patterns of Urban Youth Through the 3rd Grade.
Also, the Population Association of America and the Association of Population Centers sponsored David Swanson of the University of Mississippi who demonstrated The Impact of Katrina on the Mississippi Gulf Coast; and the Society for Research in Child Development was represented by Melanie Killen of the University of Maryland who displayed her research on When Do Children Use Race to Make Judgments About Peer Relationships?
In addition, the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences sponsored Michele Gelfand of the University of Maryland to illustrate the Historical, Political, and Ecological Factors Affecting National Culture: Insights from Cross-Cultural Psychology; and Northwestern University’s Douglas Medin exhibited The Cultural Context of Learning: Native American Science Education.
The Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health, and Society (SACGHS) is seeking public input on a draft report, Policy Issues Associated with Undertaking a Large U.S. Population Cohort Project on Genes, Environment, and Disease.
The draft report (http://www4.od.nih.gov/oba/sacghs/public_comments.htm ) focuses on preliminary and intermediate questions, steps, and strategies in five areas that should be addressed before an informed decision can be made about whether the United States should undertake a large population cohort project on the interaction of genes, environment and disease. These five areas are: 1) research policy; 2) research logistics; 3) regulatory and ethical issues; 4) public health implications of research results; and 5) social implications of research results. Options for how these issues might be addressed are identified in the report.
The Committee is particularly interested in the public’s assessment of whether:
- The policy issues identified in the draft report are appropriately focused;
- Any policy issues have been overlooked; and,
- The issues are organized in appropriate categories and addressed in such a way as to give policymakers sufficient understanding of why the issue is important.
The Committee is also seeking feedback on the sections of the draft report that discuss the importance of public engagement and the mechanisms that could be employed to achieve such engagement.
Address comments to Reed V. Tuckson, M.D., SACGHS Chair, and send them to Amita Mehrotra at mehrotraa@od.nih.gov. Comments may also can be sent by fax to 301-496-9839 or by mail to: Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health, and Society, Attention: Amita Mehrotra, NIH Office of Biotechnology Activities, 6705 Rockledge Drive, Suite 750, Bethesda, MD 20892 (20817 for non-US Postal Service mail).
Comments are due by close of business Monday, July 31, 2006. For more information about the Committee, visit http://www4.od.nih.gov/oba/sacghs.htm.TOP
The Consortium of Social Science Association is pleased to announce the University of Oklahoma as our newest member. The University of Oklahoma is one of many supporting Universities dedicated to helping COSSA promote the social and behavioral sciences. We look forward to working with them.
Inside Update. . .
Spending Bills Move Forward in House; Senate About to Begin
Labor, HHS, Education Numbers From House Spending Subcommittee
NIH: An Agency at a ‘Crossroads’
Senate Subcommittee Call for ‘Transparency’ for the 2010 Census
NSF Coalition Hold Annual Exhibition
CONSORTIUM OF SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATIONS
Executive Director: Howard J. Silver
Dep. Dir. for Health Policy: Angela L. Sharpe
Public Affairs: Pamela L. Pressley
Govt. Relations Asst.: La Tosha C. Lewis
President: Myron Gutmann
The Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA), an advocacy organization for Federal support for the social and behavioral sciences, was founded in 1981 and stands alone in Washington in representing the full range of social and behavioral sciences.
Update is published 22 times per year. Individual subscriptions are available from COSSA for $80; institutional subscriptions - $160; overseas mail - $160. ISSN 0749-4394. Address all inquiries to COSSA:
1522 K Street, NW, Suite 836
Washington, D.C. 20005
Phone: (202) 842-3525
Fax: (202) 842-2788