Special
FY2006 budget Report
The President released
his fiscal year 2006 budget Monday, recommending $2.57 trillion
in total spending. Discretionary spending would increase by only
2.1 percent, less than the projected rate of inflation. Defense spending
would increase
by 4.8 percent and
non-security discretionary spending is slated to decrease by nearly
1 percent. Bush's budget proposal
does not reflect the costs for overhauling Social Security nor does
it include money to pay war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan.
One hundred and fifty
non-defense discretionary government programs would be drastically
cut or eliminated altogether
under the President's plan. Of 23 major government
agencies, 12 would see their budget authority reduced next year,
including cuts of 9.6 percent at USDA.
If enacted, Bush's
plan would slow the growth of overall government spending to 3.6
percent next year, from 8.2 percent this year.
Generally, Republicans
welcomed the President’s
proposal as an attempt to reign in an ever-expanding federal budget.
But other members of his party were leery of some of the President’s
specific proposals. Democrats
attacked the proposed budget cuts as “draconian” and
cutting vital programs to maintain tax breaks. Others accused the
President
of masking the fiscal effects of the administration's
policies.
This newsletter includes
selected excerpts from the President's FY2006 budget. Click
here to view the entire budget.
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NASA
NASA would get an added
$400 million, or 2.4 percent, bringing its budget to $16.5 billion
as it focuses
on the administration's long-term goal of a manned mission to Mars. The
budget provides $3.2 billion, an 18 percent increase from 2005, for
Exploration Systems. Funding includes $800 million for research and
technology to ensure the health, habitation, safety and effectiveness
of future astronauts.
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National
Science Foundation
The budget
recommends $5.6 billion, a 2.4 percent
increase over the $5.47 billion provided last year. Bush requested
an increase
last year as well, but Congress made a small cut in the
agency's budget. NSF will invest $509 million in cyberinfrastructure
for such things as modeling, simulation, visualization and data storage.
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Department
of Homeland Security
The 2006 budget request
includes a 7 percent increase over the 2005 level, totaling 34.2
billion.
Science & Technology
Directorate – Over $1.3 billion is requested for
new technologies to detect and counter potential chemical, biological,
radiological, nuclear, and cyber threats and attacks, as well as
analyze threats and share information.
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Department
Of Agriculture
Animal Care -
The 2006 budget proposes $17.5 million for Animal Welfare Act (AWA)
activities and $0.5 million for the Horse Protection
Act. This
would be about $1 million more than the 2005 budget for AWA
enforcement. The budget proposes collection of about $11 million
in new user fees
for AWA.
APHIS would
marginally increase the percentage of facilities in complete
compliance from 69
percent to 70 percent, and
similarly decrease the number of animals affected by noncompliance
documented
on inspection reports from 360,000 to 350,000.
ARS Human Nutrition -
An increase of $6 million is provided to the Agricultural Research
Service (ARS) to improve the accuracy and ethnic representation of
the “What
We Eat In America” survey, and an additional $2.3 million for
nutrition survey research to determine the energy and nutrient content
of foods
consumed by U.S. minority populations, as well as research to address
the obesity epidemic and promote a healthier lifestyle. The proposed
increase is offset by proposed cuts in other human nutrition programs
and projects.
Biotechnology -
The budget requests an additional $4.5 million to enhance regulation
of biotechnology. USDA would start to build capacity to deal with
transgenic-animals, arthropods, and disease agents. In addition,
inspections of genetically modified crop field test sites would rise
from 657 to almost 700.
BSE -
The budget proposes $66 million to support efforts related to bovine
spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), including continued funding to test
40,000 animals and develop a National Animal Identification Program.
In addition, the budget provides an increase of $7.5 million for
an enhanced BSE research program. The additional research funding
is directed to increasing scientific understanding of the disease
and developing the technology needed by regulatory agencies to establish
science-based policies and control programs.
Country of
Origin Labeling - The budget provides an increase
of $3.1 million to implement a surveillance and enforcement
program for country
of origin labeling. Beginning in 2005, the Agriculture Marketing
Service (AMS) will be responsible for enforcing mandatory requirements
for fish
and
shellfish.
In
2007,
this will be expanded to include all other covered commodities.
Beginning in 2006, AMS will conduct random audits of designated
retailers to
achieve a nationwide compliance rate of 70 percent for covered
commodities reviewed. From 2007 to 2010, AMS will increase
its target compliance
rate to 95 percent to ensure that the public receives credible
and accurate information.
Food and Agriculture
Defense Initiative -
USDA, through the cooperative efforts of CSREES and the Animal Plant
Health
Inspection
Service, has established a unified network of public agricultural
institutions
to identify and respond to high risk biological pathogens
in the food and agriculture system. The network was established
with $20
million
in the 2002 Homeland Security supplemental. In 2006, the
budget
provides $30 million for an enhanced network, as well as
$5 million for a
Higher Education Agrosecurity Program. The education funds
are targeted toward
supplying educational and professional development for personnel
in securing the nation’s agriculture and food supply
by providing competitively awarded grants focusing on educational
activities addressing
biosecurity issues.
FSIS -
The 2006 budget for the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS)
includes a program level of $973 million, an increase of $36 million
over
2005. Of this total, $850 million would be funded through
appropriations, $139 million from proposed new user fees,
and $123 million
from existing user fees and trust funds.
NRI -
A total of $250 million is provided for the National Research Initiative
(NRI), an increase of $70 million (40 percent) above the 2005 estimate.
The increase will fund initiatives in agricultural genomics, nanotechnology,
food safety, water quality, pest related programs, and human nutrition
and obesity. The budget also proposes to eliminate USDA specific
limitations on indirect costs to put the NRI on an equal footing
with other federal competitive grant programs.
A major $7.5 million
initiative funded by the NRI will support research to identify
the behavioral factors that lead to obesity and our understanding
of how to change them to reduce and prevent obesity. The long-term
goal of this program is that overweight children and adolescents
will not exist in greater than 8 percent of the population.
WIC -
The President’s budget request for the Nutrition Program for
Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) would provide $5.6 billion, a
$335 million increase above last year. Funding for the WIC program
will support a monthly average of 8.5 million participants. USDA
noted WIC participation continues to grow to new record levels,
with an increase of more than 3 percent above the 2005 estimate to
a projected 8.5 million participants. The total includes $3 million
to conduct an assessment of cost containment strategies to help ensure
food costs are kept to a minimum.
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Department
of Health & Human Services
FY2006 outlays for
HHS will total $642 billion, an increase of $58 billion over FY2005.
However, the President's
budget would reduce HHS’s discretionary spending by 2.4 percent,
to $68 billion. Those figures do not include Medicare costs, which
will increase sharply with the addition of a prescription drug benefit
in 2006. The NIH budget would only receive a 0.7 percent increase,
taking it to just under $28.7 million.
Biodefense
at CDC – The administration requested money
to expand a national stockpile of vaccines and antibiotics. But
the public health emergency fund of the CDC, which helps state
and local agencies prepare for bioterror attacks, would be cut
12.6 percent, to $1 billion. In the event of an attack, states
could use that money to distribute drugs and vaccines from the
stockpile -- for example, by conducting a mass immunization campaign
against smallpox, anthrax or other infectious agents.
Biodefense
at FDA - The budget includes a $3 million increase for
a total of $5 million dedicated to the FDA biosurveillance initiative
to provide earlier indication that an attack has occurred and to
improve the ability to determine accurately its size and scope.
Defending the
Nation’s Food Supply – An increase of $30.1
million for food defense is part of a collaborative effort by FDA, USDA's
Food Safety & Inspection
Service (FSIS), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the
White House Homeland Security Council to defend the U.S. food supply
from
terrorist attacks. This would bring the total budget authority for
food defense related items to $180 million from $150 million, or
an increase
of 20 percent.
In addition, the budget
requests a $30 million increase for FDA to develop strategies
to prevent and mitigate food contamination,
as well as testing methods to identify the presence of contamination
quickly
and accurately. Each of these activities will be coordinated with
USDA, which will receive an increase of $145 million in 2006 to
protect
the
food and agriculture supply from terrorist attacks.
The proposed increase
for the food counter-terrorism program includes funds for the following
long-range projects by FDA and FSIS: Expansion
of the joint FDA-FSIS Food Emergency Response Network (FERN - $20 million
of the $30 million requested) of laboratories capable of analyzing
thousands of food samples for biological, chemical and radiological
threat agents which Congress funded in FY2005. The FY2006 request
will add an estimated 19 FDA-funded state labs.
Drug Safety
at CDC - HHS would invest $1.3 billion in support
of on-going work at the Centers for Disease Control communicating
drug safety risks to the public and applying scientific expertise
to explore the risks of medical products already on the market.
Drug Safety
at FDA – FDA
would receive $33 million, an increase of $5 million in budget
authority and $1.5 million in user fees (total $6.5 million) for
the Center for Drug Evaluation's Office of Drug Safety (ODS) an
increase of 24 percent. The program would increase the agency's
ability to more rapidly survey, identify, and respond to potential
safety
concerns regarding marketed drugs. The requested funds will also
support greater FDA access to data on health care and drug usage.
Electronic
Medical Records - The 2006 budget includes $125 million
to continue progress in developing health information technology,
including $75 million to foster collaboration and develop the conceptual
framework and infrastructure for a network that would promote patient
privacy, connect clinicians, personalize care, and improve public
health surveillance.
Human Drugs
and Biologics - In FY2006, the budget includes $747 million
for Human Drugs and Biologics, an increase of $19 million for the
Human Drugs program and an increase of $7 million in the Biologics
program. Of the total spending on these activities, $288 million
will be from industry-specific user fees. The budget includes $305
million from the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) fees, of
which $279 million is available for the Human Drugs and Biologics
programs and the remaining $26 million for costs related to the
management and operations of the program.
This represents a 147
percent increase in funds for this office since FY 2001. With increased
resources in FY 2006, FDA plans to hire additional staff to increase
personnel dedicated to evaluating and communicating drug safety risks
to the healthcare community and the American Public. FDA also plans
to use additional staff to establish policies and processes regarding
safety reviews and risk management and increase scientific expertise
available to explore safety risks and signals in various populations.
Further, FDA intends to apply more funding to obtaining access to
a wide range of clinical, pharmacy and administrative databases.
FDA will also increase the use of external experts in evaluating
post-marketing safety issues.
Influenza -
HHS will invest $439 million in targeted influenza activities in
FY2006, in addition to insurance reimbursement payments through
Medicare. The request for the CDC will fund a three-pronged approach
to ensure an adequate supply of annual vaccine. Within the Vaccines
for Children (VFC) program, CDC will allocate $40 million in new budget
authority to buy a stockpile of pediatric influenza vaccine.
A draft Pandemic Influenza
Response and Preparedness Plan was issued in August 2004, which lays
out action steps in several areas. In support
of this plan, NIH has expanded its research investment to approximately
$119 million. The budget also increases to $120 million the department's
investment to develop the year-round domestic surge vaccine production
capacity needed in a pandemic, including new cell culture
vaccine manufacturing processes.
Medical Devices
Program - The FY2006 budget includes an increase
of $12 million, for a total of $289 million, to ensure medical devices
are safe and effective.
Obesity - A Public Health Service program for "chronic disease
prevention and health promotion" would be cut by 6.5 percent,
to $841 million in 2006. The program finances efforts to prevent and
control obesity.
Stem Cells – The
budget would also eliminate a $9.9 million program to collect stem
cells from blood found in the umbilical cord after childbirth.
Traumatic
Brain Injury - The budget would eliminate a $9 million
program for the treatment of people with traumatic brain injury.
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