WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, slammed the Trump Administration for cutting off funding for the National Paralysis Resource Center (NPRC) that provides services and support for the more than five million Americans living with paralysis and their families. The Trump Administration let the grant for the NPRC expire on June 30th, forcing the program to halt much of its work helping Americans living with paralysis pursue independent and fulfilling lives.
“President Trump is cutting off a lifeline for Americans who are paralyzed – all while he goes full steam ahead building his luxury ballroom and is begging for more money for a war of choice in Iran. To say his priorities are backwards would be an understatement,” said Senator Baldwin. “We are talking about injured veterans or neighbors who got into car accidents who are not getting the support and care they need – all because President Trump and RFK, Jr. said so. This administration needs to stop putting disability programs on the back burner, ensure these services resume as soon as possible, and apologize to the Americans who have been thrown into chaos from their cruelty.”
On June 30th, the NPRC grant, awarded to the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation ended, forcing the services for paralyzed Americans to be significantly reduced.
A new NRPC grant should have been awarded prior to the current one expiring on June 30th. But the Trump administration delayed the notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) for months and only released the application for funding this week, after the grant funding had already lapsed. This new funding is not slated to be awarded until September 1st, ensuring that the NPRC and resources for paralyzed Americans will remain significantly reduced for at least two months.
This unnecessary delay is a direct result of Trump administration’s actions to politicize the federal grant making process, while simultaneously firing and forcing out federal employees, including more than half the staff that work at the Administration for Community Living that oversees this program and other programs for Americans with disabilities. Delays like this are happening across HHS, from grants supporting lifesaving biomedical research, to substance use prevention and treatment, to Head Start. These delays are troubling foreshadowing of things to come if the Trump administration moves forward with its new federal financial assistance regulation that would ensure every federal grant is a political tool of the Trump administration while delaying funding and services that Americans rely on.
HHS delaying this grant to provide services for Americans with disabilities comes at the same time the Trump administration is transferring special education programs for children with disabilities from the Department of Education to HHS, casting doubt on RFK, Jr.’s ability to manage programs for people with disabilities or special needs.
This lapse comes as Congress, on a bipartisan basis, appropriated funding earlier this year to continue the program. The NPRC was established with bipartisan Congressional support in 2001 to provide free, vital resources, care coordination, peer mentoring, and comprehensive information that help Americans living with paralysis navigate life after injury or diagnosis. Congress established the NPRC as a federally supported national resource because living with paralysis requires specialized expertise and coordination that fragmented state and local systems cannot consistently provide. The NPRC ensures that people living with paralysis, regardless of where they live, have access to trusted information, peer support, and specialized resources that no single state can deliver on its own.
An online version of this release is available here.
