Appropriations

When the current continuing resolution expires on February 18, 2022, Congress will need to pass another short-term CR to keep the government running until an agreement can be reached in the FY’22 funding package. Congressional action on the CR is expected next week. The House and Senate leadership have been working to reach an agreement on the overall spending in the package as well as the split between defense and non-defense spending. There is hope that those agreements can be reached by next week. The short-term CR is necessary to provide time to work out all of the differences in the 3,000 plus page bill, including policy riders like the Hyde amendment regarding Federal funding for abortion.

Reconciliation/Build Back Better Bill

It is unclear how the BBB would be reworked to satisfy Senators Manchin and Sinema. Manchin suggested “starting from scratch,” but Democratics would rather work on the existing bill. Biden said he’s “confident” some pieces of the existing package will become law before the midterm elections, citing more than $500 billion in clean energy spending and tax incentives, along with funding for universal prekindergarten as examples of provisions that have broad support, including from Senator Manchin.

PREVENT Pandemics Act

Chair Murray and Ranking Member Burr of the Senate HELP Committee, released a draft of the Prepare for and Respond to Existing Viruses, Emerging New Threats, and Pandemics Act (PREVENT Pandemics Act), a bipartisan bill focused on strengthening the nation’s public health and medical preparedness and response systems due to COVID-19. The legislation encourages CDC collaboration with the private sector and calls on the CDC director to continue activities related to developing capabilities for disease outbreak forecasts and analysis, including leveraging the capabilities of public and private entities.

NCSD suggested additions to the legislation and sent a letter to the committee requesting that provisions be added to provide a review of the current CDC’s grants management system, including a realignment of timing of grant years to better match the budget, appropriations, and CR enactments; efficient distribution of funding during public health emergencies; less funding restrictions, and consideration of State and local requirements to provide grantees with sufficient time to spend funds within the grant year.

The text of the draft can be found here

A section-by-section summary can be found here

Cancer Moonshot

On February 2, 2022, President Biden relaunched his “cancer moonshot” initiative which is created to reduce US cancer death rates by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years by improving cancer detection, prevention and treatment. As part of the initiative, the administration will form a “Cancer Cabinet” composed of officials from various government agencies who will be in charge of coordinating activities and expediting early detection methods.

The fact sheet can be found here

The President’s remarks can be found here

Other Legislation and Happenings Around the Nation

HIV Vaccine Clinical Trials

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is seeking volunteers to participate in clinical trials for this area’s first study of a messenger RNA-based HIV vaccine. Researchers hope to develop a series of vaccines to prevent HIV infection and deaths caused by HIV and AIDS, UT Health San Antonio said in a news release. Moderna will provide the vaccine to sites around the country, including San Antonio. The trial sites for the study also include the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Emory University in Atlanta.

COVID-19

For the first time in several weeks, new daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. were reported below 500,000. Data from the Johns Hopkins showed that new cases tallied 398,914. New deaths, however, have been on an upward trend amidst this winter’s surge of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, and the  data showed 3,622 new deaths in the past day. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), case numbers have been trending downward over the last 30 days.

Only 40 percent of the U.S. population has received a booster shot, considerably lower than the 63 percent who received two shots of the COVID-19 vaccine. Even as the Administration and health care experts continue to highlight the importance of booster doses as protection, the average number of boosters administered per day in the U.S. has dropped from a peak of one million in early December to about 490,000 last week. Fully vaccinated Americans are 14 times less likely to die of COVID-19 than those who haven’t gotten the shots. Boosted Americans are 97 times less likely to die according to Dr. Walensky, Director of the CDC.