House Fails to Override Bush Veto on HHS Budget Bill
The US House of Representatives in a late session late last week voted not to override President Bush’s veto of a large appropriations bill that would raise 2008 funding marked for the National Institutes of Health to $30 billion.
Current funding is at $28.5 billion, and the President in his budget asked for $28.7 billion, an increase that would not keep pace with biomedical inflation, according to the Association for the Advancement for Sciences, which tracks federal research funding.
Bush sent the bill back to Congress with the chide that the legislation was loaded with irresponsible spending. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush felt the bill, which would provide funding for the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the Departments of Labor and Education, would spend over $10 billion more than the amount he had wanted.
After a vote that nearly achieved the two-thirds majority necessary to override a presidential veto, with representatives voting 277 for and 114 against, HR 3043 will not become law until some compromise is reached between the House, Senate, and White House.
That leaves the NIH, along with the other bodies funded by HHS and the departments of Labor and Education, operating on interim funding until the new budget is passed.
Burnham Buys $2.3M of Labcyte Equipment
Labcyte will supply the Burnham Institute for Medical Research with more than $2.3 million worth of Echo liquid handlers for use in screening large biological libraries, the company announced last week.
The systems, which will be delivered over the next six months, will be installed at both the Institute’s La Jolla, Calif., and Lake Nona, Orlando, Fla. campuses.
These instruments will support Burnham’s research and drug discovery efforts, which include research on cancer, neurological diseases, aging, diabetes, and obesity.