Next Tuesday, June 7th, the Senate’s Labor, Health and Human Services (LHHS) Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee will mark-up their fiscal year (FY) 2017 appropriations bill.  The LHHS bill is the bill that funds all of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  The FY17 LHHS bill will then be marked up in the full Senate Committee on Thursday, June 9th.

While there is currently no indication that this bill will contain the level of cuts it initially did last year,  the top-line funding level for the LHHS bill is $270 million below the top-line funding level for the final bill in FY2016.  In addition, there are a number of fiscal pressures on the bill which will need to be addressed.  They include funding for a Zika response (which could be funded separately as emergency funding, or be funded through the LHHS bill) and funding for response to the opioid crisis, in addition to a desire for a large funding increase for the National Institutes of Health.