In Brief
Annual Meeting Session: People or Projects? Approaches to Funding Research
Join PAC on Sunday, February 20 from 2:30PM to 4:00PM for a panel on the changing landscape of scientific research funding around the globe. As scientific research continues to grow and advance with new, groundbreaking techniques, tools, and mechanisms, we are also seeing a new evolution in how this research is funded. For example, the United States, through its proposed creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, through the Leap initiative, are pushing toward high-risk, high-reward biomedical research. Through need and necessity, the United Kingdom must reinvest in itself to carve out funding for research. Over the past 15 years, France has moved to grant-based funding for scientific research. This session will explore how we, as scientists, navigate the line between funding people versus funding projects.
Annual Meeting Session: Beyond Coronavirus: Preparing for the Next Pandemic
As scientists, we know that the question of whether there will be another pandemic is not an “if” but a “when” proposition. Preparing scientific research institutions for the next pandemic cannot be delayed, as the consequences of lab shutdowns and COVID-imposed research hiatuses have been unevenly felt among researchers and recovery is still ongoing. Luckily, many lessons regarding the management of the scientific research endeavor were learned by investigators, administrators, and institutions during the current pandemic. Join us on Monday, February 21 from 1:00PM to 2:30PM PAC for an in-depth panel discussion on how we as scientists can use the takeaways from the previous two years to prepare for the next pandemic. This panel will feature scientists and administrators in various stages of their careers, discussing how to assist labs in lessening the burden of shutdowns, from staffing to tenure to facilities to travel to lost research time. The outcome of this panel discussion will be an update to the Society's white paper on Pandemic Preparedness.
Justice Breyer’s Retirement offers Biden an Opportunity and a Presidential First
The January announcement by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer of his impending retirement from the Supreme Court political win for Democrats in what has been a less than desirable start to advancing the policies of Biden Administration. While the selection of a new Justice won’t provide the opportunity for Biden to restore ideological balance to the court, it does provide the opportunity to establish a jurist who will hold the seat for an extended tenure. In a unique twist, Biden will become the first President to name a replacement for a jurist he presided over the confirmation of. Biden was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee back in 1994, leading the effort to confirm Beyer.
Democrats have made it clear they don’t intend to waste time, with plans to discuss strategy beginning immediately. President Biden has made it clear he intends to nominate a sitting jurist and that he believes it is time for a woman of color to be nominated. The is no rule or regulation to prevent the nominating and hearing process to begin while Breyer is still a sitting Supreme Court Justice. So long as all 50 Senate Democrats maintain unity and support Biden’s eventual nominee, there is no pathway for a Republican disruption of the hearings in either the Judiciary Committee or Senate floor as we saw with Amy Coney Barrett in 2020. A nomination can’t be filibustered or prevented from coming to the Senate floor so long as unity holds within the party.
Omnibus Talks Continue Between House and Senate
House and Senate appropriators are making progress on an omnibus spending deal to cover the rest of FY 2022, with sources indicating that the parties could settle on a topline figure as soon as next week. With no concrete deal on the table yet, appropriators may need to rely on another short-term CR to give themselves time to finish their work on an omnibus package. If another CR does become necessary, it would likely only extend funding for a week to ten days. At present, the House is not scheduled to be in session during the week leading up to the February 18 deadline, although that could still change depending on the Senate’s timetable for moving forward on an omnibus deal.
Congressional Research Service (CRS) Delivers Report on FY22 Appropriations
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has released a new report summarizing the current status of fiscal year (FY) 2022 Labor-HHS appropriations, covering the present budgetary context including the submission of the president's FY22 budget request, budget controls in the absence of statutory discretionary spending caps, and supplemental appropriations raised to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. It covers the steps Congress has taken towards setting final FY22 funding levels. On July 29, 2021, the House voted 219-208 to pass its version of regular 2022 Labor-HHS appropriations (Division A, H.R. 4502). While the Senate Appropriations Committee has not reported its version of the legislation, Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), released a majority draft of the Labor-HHS bill and accompanying draft report language on October 18, 2021. Since Congress has not reached an agreement on full-year FY22 appropriations, the report includes the two continuing resolutions that have been enacted to fund the government since FY22 began on October 1.