BioCentury
ARTICLE | Politics & Policy

Rep. Burgess rejects NIH budget increase

September 20, 2013 1:59 AM UTC

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), vice chair of the health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, rejected calls for exempting NIH from budget sequestration. Instead, he said the agency should use its funds more efficiently. In a television interview with BioCentury, Burgess said Congress expects agency heads "to be able to deliver with the resources that are available to them."

Burgess said some research institutions receive too much "indirect" funding for infrastructure expenses, and suggested that NIH competitively award grants to research institutions with lower indirect costs. He also questioned the need for the diversion of 2.5% of the NIH budget to a fund that is distributed across several HHS agencies. Burgess called the Public Health Service program evaluation set-aside for HHS, commonly called the "NIH tap," a "slush fund." The set-aside is intended to fund evaluations of the efficacy of federal health programs, but the funds "are not included in [HHS agency] discretionary budget authority but are counted towards the overall program level," according to a Congressional Research Service report. ...