B-303689, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences--American Chemistry Council Donation, September 30, 2005

B-303689 Sep 30, 2005 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and his delegates have authority to accept gifts, including conditional gifts, so long as they do not offend existing statutory or regulatory provisions. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) may not delegate its grants award authority to nongovernmental entities. While a memorandum of understanding provides the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a nonprofit organization that represents the United States chemical industry, the opportunity to advise and provide input, it does not delegate to ACC any decision authority. To avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest, we suggest that NIEHS develop grants policies and procedures regarding the level of participation a donor may have in the grants process and work with donors to ensure that they consider all of the restrictions and other conditions they might wish to place on their donation before providing the donation to NIEHS. View Decision B-303689, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences--American Chemistry Council Donation, September 30, 2005 B-303689 September 30, 2005 The Honorable Bart Gordon Ranking Minority Member Committee on Science House of Representatives The Honorable Mark Udall House of Representatives The Honorable Eddie Bernice Johnson House of Representatives Subject: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences—American Chemistry Council Donation This responds to your request for our opinion regarding the authority of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)[1] to accept a conditional gift from the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a nonprofit organization that represents the United States chemical industry. In July 2001, ACC donated funds to NIEHS to use to award grants for research projects studying environmental developmental toxicants. Memorandum of Understanding Between the American Chemistry Council and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, July 26, 2001 (hereinafter MOU). Under 42 U.S.C. sect. 328, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and his delegates may accept gifts, including conditional gifts. Our review of the MOU, the Request for Applications (RFA) that NIEHS issued in conjunction with the MOU, and applicable law does not establish that NIEHS agreed to any conditions that would be inconsistent with its responsibility to make final determinations on grant awards. To effectuate the overall collaborative NIEHS/ACC objective to stimulate mutually desired research, NIEHS, in the MOU, agreed to provide ACC the opportunity to review grant applications for responsiveness to the RFA, provide input to NIEHS in the negotiation and award of the grant applications, and monitor the progress of the awarded grant projects. We do not read the provisions of the MOU to provide ACC with anything more than the opportunity to provide advice and input to NIEHS as NIEHS implements its statutory authority consistent with the mutually agreed upon research objectives. To ensure transparency in the grants process, and to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest between future donors and NIEHS's statutory responsibilities, we suggest that NIEHS develop formal policies and procedures regarding the level of participation a donor may have in the grants process and articulate these policies and procedures clearly in the RFA and MOU. We also suggest that NIEHS work with donors to ensure that before making a donation, the donor has adequate knowledge of the grants process and how NIEHS may use its donation, so that the donor can consider all of the restrictions and other conditions it might wish to place on its donation before it provides the donation to NIEHS. BACKGROUND NIH's mission is to improve human health by increasing scientific knowledge related to disease and health. NIH Grants Policy Statement, Dec. 1, 2003, at 16.[2] It accomplishes this primarily through the conduct and support of biomedical and behavioral research and research training. NIH funds research conducted at NIH (intramural research) and research conducted by scientists at universities, nonprofit research organizations, for-profit organizations, and state and local governments (extramural research). As explained in the recent GAO report Federal Research: NIH And EPA Need to Improve Conflict of Interest Reviews for Research Arrangements with Private Sector Entities, GAO-05-191 (Washington, D.C.: Feb.