President’s FY 2009 Budget Request – Regulatory and Research Agencies


The Bush Administration rolled out its fiscal year (FY) 2009 budget request on February 4, 2008.  The President’s budget is an annual proposal—usually submitted the first Monday in February—for how to fund the federal government in the following fiscal year.  After the initial submission of the President’s budget request, Congress has the power to dictate spending through the legislative appropriations process, which typically begins in Spring-Summer.

Although only a recommendation, the annual budget request is important because it provides an explicit outline of the funding goals and priorities of the Administration.  If the President calls for spending reductions in key areas, it then becomes necessary for the public—through Congress—to correct those inadequacies via the appropriations process.

The following is a general overview of the FY 2009 budget request for several relevant regulatory and research agencies, departments, and programs (all numbers have been rounded):

  • Health and Human Resources (HHS)  / National Institutes of Health (NIH)  / National Cancer Institute (NCI)

The FY 2009 budget request would fund NCI at approximately $4.8 billion.  This is a relatively minor increase of $4.7 million over the FY 2008 enacted (with rescission) level. 

 In the report, The Nation’s Investment in Cancer Research, NCI estimated they would need to receive $5.2 billion to sustain the FY 2008 level of institute activity in FY 2009.  With the President’s budget requesting only $4.8 billion, the institute is looking at reductions in the Understanding the Mechanisms of Cancer, Improve Early Detection and Diagnosis, Cancer Prevention and Control, and Buildings and Facilities programs.

The FY 2009 budget request calls for a total 5,083 Research Project Grants (RPG) awards—3,714 non-competing awards (-143 from FY 2008), 317 competing renewals (+15), 1,015 new competing awards (+35), and 37 supplements (+16).  The total number of RPG awards would be down 77 from FY 2008.

  • HHS / NIH / National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB)

NIBIB would be funded at approximately $300.25 million in the FY 2009 President’s budget—a small increase of $1.6 million above the FY 2008 enacted (with rescission) level of $298.65 million.  As a result, the institute would need to make several cutbacks to account for inflation.

With this proposal, NIBIB would fund 568 RPG awards in FY 2009, down from 603 the previous fiscal year.  Of the 568 RPG awards, 409 would be non-competing (-13 from FY 2008), 24 would be competing renewals (-3), and 135 would be new competing awards (-19).

  • HHS / Food and Drug Administration (FDA) / Devices and Radiological Health Program

The FDA Devices and Radiological Health Program, administered through the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), would be funded at $290.92 million—a small increase of $7.14 million over the FY 2008 enacted level.  Medical Device User Fee and Modernization Act (MDUFMA) and Mammography Quality Standards Act (MQSA) user fees would account for $49.04 million—an increase of $3.26 million. 

FY 2009 funding for Devices and Radiological Health subprograms, such as MQSA activities, would remain consistent with FY 2008 levels.  Only relatively minor increases were included in the President’s budget request.

  • HHS / FDA / Human Drugs Program

The FY 2009 budget request for the FDA Human Drug Program, administered by the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), is approximately $738.72 million—$358 million of which would come from the budget authority, and over $380.7 million from user fees.  This would be total increase of $58.45 million over the FY 2008 enacted level. 

The growth is attributed in part to increasing post-market safety and surveillance efforts, and the October 2007 reauthorization of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA IV).

  • HHS / Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

The FY 2009 budget request for the CDC was approximately $8.8 billion—a $412.1 million decrease from the FY 2008 enacted level of $9.21 billion. 

Despite the overall CDC reduction, the President’s budget requests a $10.3 million increase for a $131.1 million total for the Upgrading CDC Capacity program, which in part deals with radiological and chemical incident preparedness and emergency response.  This funding would support growth in the Laboratory Response Network (LRN) and the Radiological Laboratory Response Network (LRN-R), among other activities.

  • HHS / Office of the Secretary / Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)

The HHS ONC budget supports the American Health Information Community (AHIC) program.  The President’s budget request calls for approximately $66.2 million (including $48,000,000 in Public Health Evaluation Funds) in FY 2009—an increase of about $5.6 million over the FY 2008 enacted level. 

The growth would fund efforts to assure appropriate federal privacy and security protections of electronic health information, and also to make the transition from AHIC to the public-private AHIC successor (AHIC 2.0).  AHIC 2.0 is expected to become self-sustaining after FY 2009.

  • HHS / Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)

The FY 2009 budget request for HRSA of $5.87 billion would be a $991.7 million reduction from the FY 2008 enacted level of $6.86 billion.  To pay for the reduction, several of HRSA’s health professions training programs are on the cutting block, the Rural Health Policy office would be reduced by $150.1 million, and the Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education and Public Health Improvement programs would be zeroed out.

  • Department of Energy (DOE) / Office of Science

The FY 2009 budget request for the DOE Office of Science is approximately $4.72 billion, an increase of $748.8 million from FY 2008.

All basic scientific research related to nuclear medicine and molecular imaging in the DOE Office of Science / Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) was moved from the Medical Applications program to the Life Sciences program.  This research would be funded at approximately $13.12 million—a decrease of $8.8 million from the FY 2008 enacted level.

The biggest surprise in the budget request for DOE was that the Isotope Production and Applications program moved from the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) to the Office of Science / Office of Nuclear Physics (NP).  The President’s budget proposes to fund the program’s infrastructure at $19.8 million and there are plans to implement a series of enhancements in management and production scheduling.  Production costs, minus infrastructure and R&D, would be recovered in part from customers.

  • Department of Defense (DOD) / Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP)

The AFIP would be reduced from the FY 2008 enacted level of $81.5 million to approximately $63.2 million in FY 2009.  This reduction is comparable to the cut in the President’s budget request for FY 2008, but later restored by Congress in appropriations.

  • Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)

The FY 2009 budget request for NRC calls for approximately $1.02 billion—an increase of $90.9 million from the FY 2008 enacted level of $926.1 million.  NRC must recover approximately 90 percent of its total budget from fees.  Thus, $855.5 million would need to be offset by fees in FY 2009—an increase of $76.4 million.

$16.9 million of the proposed total increase for NRC is due to growth in the Nuclear Material Users program, which would be funded in FY 2009 at $74.3 million.  Part of this growth is attributed to NRC’s recently implemented regulatory authority over naturally occurring and accelerator produced radioactive materials (NARM).