Congressional Justifications
The National Eye Institute (NEI) receives its annual budget through a congressional appropriation for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The fiscal year (FY) starts on October 1 of the preceding calendar year (CY) and runs through September 30.
The President submits a government-wide budget request to Congress on the first Monday in February. The request includes the NEI Congressional Justification (CJ) as a component of the larger NIH CJ to Congress. The NEI CJ provides:
- NEI Director’s vision and an overview of the NEI organization
- prior-year budget numbers, current-year estimates, and future-year requests
- recent accomplishments in vision and eye research
- highlights of scientific research programs
- justification of NEI goals and necessary funding levels.
FY2026 Budget
The FY 2026 Budget proposes to consolidate the National Eye Institute into the National Institute on Neuroscience and Brain Research. For more information on the FY 2026 NIH Congressional Justification, see the NIH Office of Budget website.
Note: Budget requests for years prior to FY 2026 were submitted by prior Administrations and may not reflect current HHS policy.
Recent NEI CJs are presented below:
Congressional Testimony
As part of the annual budget process, the Senate and House appropriations committees and/or subcommittees hold public hearings to discuss the President’s proposed budget. At the discretion of the Committees, the NIH Director and individual Institute and Center (IC) Directors testify either in person or by submitting opening statements for the record.
Recent NEI testimonies are presented below:
- Due to the COVID pandemic, no NIH appropriations hearings were held in 2020. Please refer to a statement for the record, “State of the Science Remarks—Vision Research” for FY 2020.
- NEI FY 2019 budget request
- NEI FY 2017 budget request
