WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee, released the following statement as the White House plans to double down on its efforts to take control of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grantmaking process and further politicize the agency. Recent reporting shows the White House has begun drafting a new executive order that would establish a panel chosen by the White House to veto NIH research that does not conform to President Trump’s political agenda.
“Instead of investing taxpayer funds based on the science and what experts think is the best bet for the next medical breakthrough, President Trump wants to pick and choose research projects based on his own political agenda. If implemented, this scheme means that if Donald Trump wants to target a scientist or university he thinks wronged him, the President could stop their cancer clinical trial or defund their research into ALS cures,” said Senator Baldwin. “This is more of the same from President Trump, who has spent his second term taking away services and hope from families, just to seek revenge and free up money for his war overseas, tax breaks for billionaires, and vanity projects. It’s time for Republicans to join me and stop this administration from undermining biomedical research because American families deserve a government doing everything it can to find treatments and cures for the diseases their loved ones are battling – not one that empowers Russ Vought and Donald Trump to use taxpayer dollars with impunity.”
News that the White House is preparing an executive order comes after the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed a policy that will allow the President to weaponize federal grants for political purposes and terminate or suspend federal grants at any time and without notice. In July, Senator Baldwin joined her colleagues in calling out the OMB proposed rule for exceeding OMB’s statutory authority, undermining Congress’s constitutional power of the purse, and inserting partisan politics into a process that should be driven by merit and expertise.
President Trump has spent his second term working to gut NIH – cutting staff, proposing a 40% cut to funding, withholding, diverting, and cancelling taxpayer dollars approved by Congress, and awarding billions of dollars less in grants to research projects than in previous years.
An online version of this release is available here.
