Appropriations

As we have mentioned before, Congress has been discussing FY19 funding, including appropriations for DSTDP. In fact, Senate and House appropriators expect to be marking up the FY19 bills in the coming weeks.

In Congress, there were letters circulated in support of $227.3 million for sexually transmitted disease prevention at the CDC. This was the first time that there were standalone letters in support of federal STD funding. Both the Senate and House letters are now closed for signers and we thank you for outreach you did to ask your Senators and Representatives to sign on.

Rescission

You may have already or you may soon hear about a rumored rescission package of funding coming from the Administration.  A rescission is a request to rescind funds that were previously appropriated by Congress. This is not a mechanism used often by presidents but President Trump proposed a FY18 budget for about $113 billion less than Congress actually appropriated so it is likely that the president will propose rescinding some portion of that funding. If a rescission is proposed, the spending on whatever is proposed rescinded could have spending frozen for up to 45 days while Congress determines whether to act.

This is already getting national press coverage and we at NCSD are monitoring the process, but we do not believe that the proposal will be approved by Congress (remember they just passed this spending bill) and even if there is action, it is unlikely that STDs will be impacted.

Opioids

On Thursday, Senator Warren and Congressman Cummings introduced legislation, Comprehensive Addiction Resources Emergency (CARE) Act of 2018, to provide $100 billion in federal funding over 10 years to combat the opioid crisis including a focus on addressing the infectious disease consequences of the opioid crisis. The bill would provide $4 billion per year to states, territories, and tribal governments and an additional $2.7 billion per year to the counties and cities hardest hit by the crisis.  A one-pager about the legislation can be found here.

On April 25, the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee will markup bills related to the opioid crisis.  The Senate HELP Committee is expected to markup their bill on April 24.   The Senate HELP Committee will consider one massive bipartisan bill, comprised of 40 different proposals submitted by committee and non-committee members alike. The House subcommittee will consider its bills individually.  More information about specific bills under consideration should be released on Monday.