Highlights
- Both the House and the Senate
would once again reject the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) proposal
to reorganize its budget to fully report all costs associated with its
R&D portfolio, including support and personnel costs.
- VA federal R&D would total $805 million in FY 2006 in the Senate plan
(see Table), up 2.7 percent from this year
and a similar boost over the request.
VA R&D in FY 2006 Senate Appropriations
On July 21, the Senate Appropriations
Committee drafted its version of the FY 2006 Military Construction and
Veterans Affairs appropriations bill (HR 2528). The House approved its
version of the similar but not identical Military Quality of Life bill
in June. This newly-created bill funds the Department of Veterans Affairs
(VA) as well as military construction and other programs of the Department
of Defense (DOD), but there are large differences between the House
and the Senate over which DOD programs are included. In previous years,
VA had been funded along with the National Science Foundation, NASA,
and EPA in the now-eliminated VA-HUD appropriations bill while the DOD
programs had been funded in the Military Construction bill. VA
R&D would increase $21 million or 2.7 percent to $805 million
in the Senate bill, $19 million more than the request and the House
appropriation (see Table). (For details of the President’s request for
VA R&D, please see Chapter 8 of AAAS
Report XXX: R&D FY 2006 or
the March 3 VAR&D Funding Update. For details
of House appropriations for VA R&D, see the June
3 R&D Funding Update.)
The Department of Veterans Affairs
(VA) is one of the 10 largest R&D funding agencies in the federal
government, with the 10th largest R&D portfolio in the
FY 2006 budget request, but receives relatively little attention because
its entire R&D investment goes to its own hospitals. VA’s Medical
and Prosthetic Research is a longstanding program of research aimed
at improving health care for veterans through research on injuries and
illnesses with special relevance to veterans. All scientists and engineers
who receive VA funds must be VA employees, and thus its entire R&D
investment takes place in VA hospitals and laboratories except for a
small proportion of VA investigators who hold joint appointments with
academic institutions. This year, the VA R&D portfolio is overshadowed
even more than usual by other VA programs because multi-billion dollar
operating deficits in VA medical care accounts have come to light in
recent weeks, which have prompted Congress to allocate billions of dollars
in emergency spending both for this year and next year to fully fund
VA medical care costs.
The Medical and Prosthetic
Research budget account is the core of VA’s research effort, but in
the past it has funded just over half of VA’s total R&D for support
of direct R&D costs. Investigator salaries, support costs, infrastructure,
and other costs have been funded out of other VA medical care accounts.
The FY 2006 budget proposed to consolidate all these R&D costs into
the Medical and Prosthetic Research account in a request of $786 million,
compared to a 2005 appropriation of $402 million. After adjusting the
2005 budget for support costs, the 2006 request represented a $2 million
or 0.3 percent gain (see Table).
VA has requested this consolidation
twice before, but Congress has kept funding under the old system. Both
the House and the Senate follow the pattern by rejecting this consolidation
and keeping direct R&D costs only in the Medical and Prosthetic
Research account. Other costs would continue to be funded in other
VA medical care accounts, for a total of $805 million in the Senate
(see Table).
Figure 1. (click
on the image for PDF)
VA federal R&D has mostly
expanded in recent years as the overall VA budget has grown (see Figure 1).
After peaking last year, VA R&D would fall in 2005 and level off in the 2006
Senate plan because of tough budgetary pressures for domestic spending. Years
ago, VA did not count support, salary, and infrastructure costs in its R&D
funding. The big jump in FY 1997 represents VA’s decision to add in these costs
beginning that year.
The Senate Military
Construction and Veterans Affairs bill now goes to the Senate floor
for debate and expected approval, but debate could be delayed until
September because of a logjam of other legislation. A House-Senate conference
may last well into the fall because of jurisdictional differences between
the House and Senate versions of the bill.
-
July 25, 2005
(This analysis is one of a series of AAAS R&D Funding
Updates on FY 2006 congressional appropriations. The complete series
of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including continually updated analyses
of R&D in FY 2006 appropriations, is available on the AAAS
R&D Web Site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd) in the "FY
2006 R&D" or the "What's New"
sections.)
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607; -6600
AAAS R&D
Web site: www.aaas.org/spp/rd
