A committee in the U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a bill on Wednesday morning to reauthorize the National Institutes of Health for the first time in more than a decade.

The bill could speed through Congress this year, predicted Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican who leads the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction over the agency (The Chronicle, September 13). Democrats on the panel questioned certain details of the bill at a hearing this afternoon, but the measure is considered to have bipartisan support.

The bill has been endorsed by some of the largest associations representing academic researchers and institutions, including the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Association of American Universities, and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. The NIH is the largest source of funds for academic research.