JUNE 2009
Senator Harkin asks top NIH officials whether a four-year timeline would be helpful
Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that sets funding levels for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), recently raised the possibility of giving the NIH more time to spend the funds it received through the economic stimulus package.
The economic stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) invested $10.4 billion in the NIH and mandated that the agency decide how to spend the money by the end of FY2010 (Sept. 30, 2010).
Harkin posed the question to a panel of top NIH officials, including NIH Acting Director Raymond S. Kington, M.D., Ph.D., and NCI Director, John Niederhuber, M.D., during a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Labor, Health, Human Services and Education (Labor HHS) Subcommittee on May 22.
Expressing concern about the agency's capacity to support scientists beyond the two-year timeline and the potential "cliff" that the NIH may face once the funds are spent, Harkin asked the panelists whether it would be helpful to them if the timeline were extended to four years.
Kington assured the chairman that NIH can spend the money "responsibly" in two years, but that the option of more flexibility would be helpful.
Links:
Read More from the June Edition of the AACR Cancer Policy Monitor:
Top