After several weeks of uncertainty, Congress united to pass a budget deal for Fiscal Year 2020. The House voted 297-120 on December 17 to approve the FY2020 spending package that contains the Labor Health & Human Services provision. On December 19, the Senate voted 71-23 to pass the eight-bill domestic spending bundle, H.R. 1865 (116), that would fund the departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Interior, Labor, State, Agriculture, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development. The package also raised the legal age to purchase tobacco products to 21. The bill was signed by the president just prior to the midnight deadline on December 20.
The final budget deal included several legislative wins for the biomedical research community: The budget allocates $41.7 billion to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — a $2.6 billion increase, and $6.44 billion to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) — a $296 million increase. This includes $212.5 million targeted toward competitive NCI grants.
The boost in funding is a positive development for the cancer community at large. Improving the NCI grant success rate remains a priority for AACI in 2020. To help close the gap between grants requested and available funds, AACI will continue to advocate for an increase to the NCI budget proportional to the NIH budget increase.
"Investment in the NIH and the NCI is essential to building on the many successes of our nation’s cancer centers," said Roy A. Jensen, MD, AACI president and director of The University of Kansas Cancer Center. "The future of cancer discovery hinges on research funding. We especially appreciate the work of Subcommittee Chairs Roy Blunt and Rosa DeLauro and Ranking Members Patty Murray and Tom Cole. They, and their staff, listened to our concerns related to the research project grant pool and this funding boost is a major step in the right direction."