September 2019

With a budget agreement in place, the Senate Appropriations Committee worked throughout September on appropriations bills for the 2020 fiscal year (FY).

On September 18, the Senate Appropriations Committee released the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (LHHS) FY 2020 bill and committee report. The bill would freeze funding for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) at the FY 2019 overall level of $615.5 million. All of the programs within IES also would be funded at the FY 2019 levels. In comparison, the House version, advanced by the full chamber in June, provides $650 million for IES.

The Senate LHHS bill also would provide $42.1 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a $3 billion boost above the FY 2019 level, with an $80.9 million proposed increase to nearly $1.59 billion for the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). In comparison, the House bill would increase funding for NIH by $2 billion and for NICHD by $74.6 million.

On September 26, the Senate Appropriations Committee advanced the FY 2020 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) bill. The bill would provide $8.32 billion for the National Science Foundation (NSF), including $937 million for the Education and Human Resources Directorate and $6.77 billion for Research and Related Activities. The amounts are slightly lower than the House CJS bill.

The House and Senate bills still need to be reconciled as the House-passed appropriations bills are above the budget caps established in the latest two-year budget agreement. On September 27, President Trump signed a continuing resolution that would keep the government open past the September 30 funding deadline and maintain FY 2019 funding levels through November 21.