Washington, DC Update

Posted 17 July 2017

While the House and Senate continue their push to draft an overall Fiscal Year 2018 budget, the Appropriations Committees that decide funding for NIH and CDC are plowing ahead on individual agency funding bills as to avoid a logjam in September. The House Appropriations Committee has approved the defense spending measure. The State and Foreign Operations (SFOPS) and the Labor, Health and Human Services (LHHS) Subcommittees marked up their bills this week. The SFOPS bill will include $47.4 billion in discretionary spending, which is a 10 percent cut and $5.7 billion less than the current FY 2017 allocation of $53.1 billion. The LHHS bill proposed $158 billion in funding, or $5 billion less than the current allocation of $161 billion for FY 2017. 

The LHHS bill includes $35.2 billion for NIH in FY 2018 ($1.2 billion above FY 2017), including $5 billion for the NIAID (about $100 million above FY 2017) and $73 million for the Fogarty International Center ($1 million above FY 2017). The CDC is funded at $7 billion, or $198 million below FY 2017. CDC’s global health center would remain level funded at $345 million. Within the SFOPS bill, global health programs under USAID are funded at $2.6 billion, or $400 million below FY 2017. 

The two chambers (House and Senate) are running up against the clock with less than 30 legislative days remaining on the calendar before the end of the current fiscal year. Coupled with their deadlines, the two chambers face the hurdle of resolving a concurrent budget resolution to address spending limits for defense and non-defense discretionary spending that is currently limited by the Budget Control Act, a.k.a. sequestration. 

HHS Secretary Tom Price announced July 7 his appointment of Georgia’s public health commissioner, Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, to lead the CDC. Dr. Fitzgerald served as Commissioner and State Health Officer in Georgia’s Department of Public Health for the past six years. During that time, she also served as a member of Georgia’s Homeland Security Task Force. From 2014-2016, she served as Secretary and Treasurer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, and as President-Elect from 2016 through 2017. She also served as a policy adviser to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Sen. Paul Coverdell. Her training is in obstetrics and she is board certified, having practiced for three decades. Dr. Fitzgerald has publicly endorsed vaccinations but she does not have a record of having conducted scientific research. ASTMH will be sending a welcome letter to Dr. Fitzgerald emphasizing the importance of CDC’s work in global health and infectious disease and offering the Society as a resource and partner in this work.

Former Congressman and Ambassador to Tanzania Mark Green’s nomination for USAID Administrator continues to move through the process. Ambassador Green testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 15 to warm support from Senators on both sides of the aisle. And on July 12, the Committee voted to discharge his nomination to the full Senate. A Senate confirmation vote has yet to be scheduled.  

The Administration’s immigration travel ban took partial effect on June 29. You may recall from previous newsletters that President Trump’s Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen was challenged in multiple court cases. On June 2, President Trump asked the Supreme Court to review the case, and on June 26 the Supreme Court handed down its decision, allowing the ban to go into effect on June 29. However, the Supreme Court allowed the ban to bar entry into the U.S. for people who do not have a relationship with an American or U.S. entity. Relationships include nuclear familial connections such as parents, spouses, fiancés, children, children-in-law or siblings, but does not include grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews or cousins. Relationships with U.S. entities must be formal and documented in the ordinary course rather than for the purpose of evading the Executive Order.
 
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