Senate Appropriations Committee Restores NIH, CDC Funding

• The powerful Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill maintaining FY 2025 funding for NIH and some CDC global health programs 

• The spending blueprint reverses plans to eliminate HRSA and CDC Cancer Center 
  

• Planned cuts to some global programs at NIH and CDC would also be reversed. 

In a solid bipartisan vote of 29-3, the Senate Appropriations Committee recently approved its FY 2026 spending bill for the U.S. Departments of Labor, Health and Humans Services, and Education. In doing so, the spending committee proposed restoring funding to critical healthcare agencies and programs that had been targeted for significant cuts. Included among them are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s Division for Cancer Prevention and Control (DCPC) and the Health Resource and Services Administration (HRSA), responsible for most federal workforce development initiatives. Both the DCPC and HRSA were targeted for elimination in President Trump’s budget proposal.

The spending blueprint would increase funding for the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) budget by $400 million, increasing funding to $48.7 billion. The Trump administration had proposed cutting NIH funding by $18 billion, approximately 40 percent less than for the current fiscal year. The Committee also voted to reverse the administration’s proposal to cap indirect research grant costs at 15 percent, a move that, if included in the final bill, should alleviate some of the financial pressure on medical schools, universities, and other research centers. 

The Committee’s spending draft would also restore some of the global health funding the Trump Administration has proposed cutting from the federal budget. While most global health programs are funded through a separate spending bill for the State Department, the measure recently approved includes funds for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) global health programs and the National Institutes of Health’s global health research initiatives. The Committee’s bill would provide $693 million to CDC and $95 million for NIH for these initiatives—the same amounts as provided for FY 2025. The Senate bill rejects the administration’s plan to eliminate CDC’s Global Health Center. 

The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to begin work on their appropriations bills in September.  ASCP will be monitoring Congress’s FY 2026 spending bills and be will be working to ensure vital healthcare programs are adequately funded.