Bill Would Give NIH Director Broad Power Over Spending

By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 20, 2005; Page A21

The director of the National Institutes of Health would have unprecedented authority to decide federal spending priorities for biomedical research and would gain new powers to kill or consolidate the agency's 27 institutes and centers under draft legislation released by a House committee yesterday.

The proposed changes, drafted by the Energy and Commerce Committee in consultation with NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni and others, are part of an effort in Congress to reauthorize the $28 billion agency for the first time since 1993.