Congress Approves 2010 Appropriations

Congress finalized the 2010 federal appropriations process on Sunday, December 11. The Fiscal Year 2010 Omnibus Appropriations Bill included six spending bills that covered a range of domestic and State Department programs including key federal science agencies.

Both the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) will see an increase in their 2010 budgets. Congress agreed on a 2.3% increase for the NIH, which will have a $31 billion budget next year. This represents an increase of about $692 million over the agency's 2009 budget (not counting the billions from the recovery funding) and is about $250 million more than President Barack Obama's budget request for the NIH.

The NSF fared a little better, receiving a $436 million budget bump to bring its 2010 budget to a $6.9 billion. This is a 6.7% increase over NSF's 2009 base budget and includes $310 million for climate change research, modeling, and education.

President Obama signed the Omnibus Bill into law in mid-December.