In a recent letter sent to leadership of the U.S. House and Senate Committees on Appropriations, the American College of Radiology® (ACR®) joined more than 250 research advocacy organizations to urge swift passage of the fiscal year (FY) 2023 federal government spending package.
The coalition recommended legislators provide at least the House Appropriations Committee-passed $47.5 billion funding level for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) base budget. They commended congressional leaders for their longstanding bipartisan support of the NIH and thanked them for proposed increases to both the NIH base-level budget and the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) in both the House and Senate Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education spending bills. The coalition advocates that ARPA-H funding should supplement rather than supplant NIH base-level funding.
They also continue to urge Congress to avoid additional continuing resolutions (CR) to fund the government. The FY 2022 appropriations package expired on Sept. 30; since then the government has been funded through a CR, a temporary spending bill to ensure the government does not shut down while appropriation levels are still being negotiated. The coalition asserts that using CRs to fund the government is inefficient, creates uncertainty and is disruptive to biomedical research and medical progress. The current CR will expire on Dec.16.
For more information, please contact Katie Grady, ACR Government Affairs Director.