House Passes NIH Reauthorization Bill 283 to 131; Amendment to Freeze NIH Budget Fails by 41 Votes

03/12/91 -00:23:40 VIA FAX

David Han i t tan ' Page 2

Page 2 of 2 (LS - WASFAX 3/12/93) Societies (Cont'd)
Reductions may be better achieved through changes in NIH's priorities
rather than by across-the-boar? reductions. Further, if cuts must be made
to the federal support of bi tcical research in this country, the
scientific community stands piepared to discuss how these cuts could be
imposed in a manner that minimizes damage to the nation's ability to treat
disease in the long run, says a Joint Steering Committee for Public Policy
from the American Society for Cell Biology, the American Society of
Bi)chemistry and Molecular Biology, the Biophysical Society and the
Genetics Society of America.
Together they suggest that several interdisciplinary organizations such as
the New Delegation for Biomedical Re -arch, the National Academy of
Sciences might be engaged in a reassesment of the scientific priorities
and funding mechanisms.
The joint committee in their letter to the House and senate Budget
Committees pay particular attention to the reduction or capping of
indirect cost rates to the universities. "Significant reductions in the
indirect cost recovery rate which funds required services, administration,
facilities and utilities could permanently cripple our most important
scientific institutions," says the committee.
"The implementation of an absolute cap on the indirect cost recovery rate
would not only damage the ability of scientists to conduct research in
general, it would have a greatly uneven effect on various universities,
with the heaviest impact on the country's most prr 'lctive private
institutions. This inequity would result from the fferent ways that
construction of research facilities is financed b he public and private
universities; public univesi es generally raise money for university
research infrastructure and particularly for laboratory construction and
libraries through taxation and public bond offerings. Private universities
and some public institutions usually do not have the option of using
public monies for facilities and therefore have incurred long-term debt to
finance these facilities through higher negotiated indirect cost recovery
rates at private universities. Therefore, private universities need and
have significantly higher negotiated federal indirect cost recovery rates
than public universities to pay for these facilities," they explain.
The societies point out that for most public universities the federal
indirect cost recovery rate is already under the 44% to 45% limit being
considered. In contrast, the rates for the major private universities are
generally much higher, usually in the range of 70% to 80%.
"An absolute imposition of a 44-45% indirect cost rate would drastically
and disproportionately damage the ability of these institutions to conduct
research," says the joint committee. "They simply would not be able to
make their debt payments on their research facilities next year."
NOTE
NIH merit review questions and answers will continue on Monday.
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