Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act funded in federal spending bill

After a fluid week of budget negotiations and bipartisan hostility in Washington, childhood cancer research advocates have reason to smile following the Senate's passage late Saturday of a $1.1 trillion spending bill that will keep most of the federal government funded through next summer.

The Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act, named after a 10-year-old childhood cancer advocate from Loudoun County who died following a vicious fight against cancer in her brain, will be funded through the newly-passed budget measure.

Within the act, $12 million will be designated for a pediatric research initiative at the National Institutes of Health, according to a Senate aide.

The Gabriella Miller bill, as signed into law by President Barack Obama last spring, intends to send more than $120 million for childhood cancer research at NIH over the next decade, though congressional funding appropriation is required annually. Those funds are to be redirected from political party conventions.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) made special note of the Gabriella Miller act in a statement late Saturday.

“This bill includes important funding for priorities across Virginia that we have fought for throughout the year, including significant funding for repairs at NASA Wallops, maintaining our 11 aircraft carrier fleet, supporting shipbuilding in Hampton Roads, transportation funding in Northern Virginia, and funding for the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act,” said Kaine. “While I am disappointed that full-year funding for the Department of Homeland Security is held up and a measure to weaken Wall Street regulations has been included, I'm optimistic this legislation is a step in the right direction toward normal budgetary order.”

Ellyn Miller, Gabriella's mother, celebrated the news on Facebook.

“Our Sweet GG did it!” Miller noted. “Thirteen and a half months after Gabriella died she moved our Congress to come together for our children battling disease. Congress 'stopped talking and started doing!' ... Thanks to so many individuals and organizations, working together towards a common goal, we succeeded the first time out the gate! Thank you and congratulations! We did it! We have made a tremendous difference in the world of childhood disease research!'”

Part of the spending bill – dubbed the “Cromibus,” a combining of the terms “continuing resolution” (C.R.) and “omnibus” -- included funding the Department of Homeland Security only through late February, when Republicans, with their new majority in the Senate and House, are expected to fight against President Obama's executive action delaying the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants. Several conservative Republicans expressed interest in having the immigration standoff now rather than after the new year.

Also drawing contention in the spending plan, this from liberals, was a GOP-backed effort to roll back some Wall Street regulations from the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform law.

“We shouldn't allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who recently was assigned a leadership role among Senate Democrats, said in a prepared statement. “This package avoids the damage and disruption of another government shutdown, and it honors the spending caps that Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate agreed to last year.”

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