Congress has extended FY22 spending talks once again, leaving the proposed Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H)—a key piece of President Joe Biden’s cancer agenda—in limbo.
The second continuing resolution of the year was signed into law Dec. 3, narrowly avoiding a government shutdown by stretching current government spending to Feb. 18, 2022. H.R.6119, the Further Extending Government Funding Act, passed 221-212 in the House and 69-28 in the Senate.
The stopgap funding measure authorizes additional backing for the Department of Defense’s Operation Allies Welcome, which supports Afghan refugees, but otherwise provides no new funds.
This means ARPA-H, a proposed DARPA-like NIH agency that would accelerate high-risk, high-reward research, has yet to be authorized or funded (The Cancer Letter, Nov. 12, 2021).
