On April 15, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. began a marathon of seven congressional hearings in which he would need to defend the President’s fiscal year 2027 (FY27) budget request for his department. Two of the most important hearings occurred before the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (LHHS), which recommend funding for agencies including the National Institutes of Health (NIH). FABBS is pleased to report that in each hearing, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle showed strong support for robust NIH funding.
House LHHS Hearing
Secretary Kennedy appeared before the House LHHS Subcommittee on April 16. Most of the hearing focused on healthcare and policy issues, such as cybersecurity for health information, vaccines, and carcinogens. However, Members of Congress raised NIH funding in both the opening remarks and during the question-and-answer session.
Opening Statements
Chair Robert Aderholdt (R-AL) opened the hearing by praising Kennedy for his leadership at HHS and the success of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative. He touched on several common Republican talking points, including the claim that healthcare spending is too high for the results we are getting. While Aderholt generally supports the president’s HHS budget, he noted that he disagrees with large swings in funding for NIH, calling them “counterproductive.” He stated his eagerness to keep the U.S. at the forefront of scientific research by robustly funding the agency.
Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) made it very clear the Subcommittee would not be making extreme cuts to any HHS agencies, pointing to the bipartisan FY26 bill that rejected cuts proposed by the Trump Administration last year. She also raised concerns about HHS not making enough progress obligating FY26 funds, a point that would later be echoed by other Subcommittee members.
In his opening statement, Kennedy defended the proposed budget and reorganization of HHS, claiming there is too much waste across the department. He summarized a number of MAHA successes, such as new dietary guidelines and steps to make prescription drugs more affordable. Kennedy echoed the Administration’s emphasis on employing gold standard science (GSS) at federal research agencies (see FABBS reporting), claiming he is freeing experts from censorship. He argued the budget will help NIH maintain its position as a global leader in biomedical research.
Subcommittee Member Questions and Concerns
Both Republicans and Democrats made clear their strong support for robust NIH funding. Representative Stephanie Bice (R-OK) stated there is “no path to a healthier nation without a strong and sustained investment in scientific research,” noting that medical breakthroughs don’t just happen immediately but instead take years of research. She asked Kennedy where the NIH cuts would come from and how he would ensure they would not disrupt research. Kennedy did not answer the second question, but provided examples of so-called “DEI” studies that he thought could be easily cut. He did acknowledge that cuts to NIH are painful but necessary due to the country’s extreme debt.
Only Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) raised concerns about the proposed restructuring of NIH (see previous FABBS reporting). Coleman asked Kennedy whether he agrees that some diseases have a higher incidence rate in minority populations, to which the Secretary easily concurred. She then pressed him on why he would support eliminating the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD). Unsurprisingly, Kennedy did not directly answer this question, instead repeating that the Trump Administration is focused on improving the health of all Americans.
In addition to DeLauro, two other Democrats wanted it known that HHS is dragging its feet in releasing obligated FY26 funds to grant awardees. Both Representatives Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Lois Frankel (D-FL) told Kennedy this is unacceptable, but did not directly ask any questions about the problem. In her closing remarks, DeLauro asked the Secretary if he would commit to fully obligating HHS’s FY26 appropriated funds. Kennedy confirmed that all the money would be released and agreed to share the department’s spend plans when prompted.
Senate LHHS Hearing
On April 21, Kennedy appeared before the corresponding Senate subcommittee. Once again, support for strong NIH funding emerged as a bipartisan issue. Notably, Republican senators raised many of the NIH concerns FABBS has shared in our eight state engagement strategy.
[Watch the full hearing here.]
Opening Statements
Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) thanked Kennedy for submitting a “much more reasonable” HHS budget this year than the Administration did for FY26. Capito highlighted the increase the Subcommittee gave NIH last year, signaling she may not support the Administration’s proposed $6 billion cut. She emphasized the need for NIH-funded research across the country to support Americans’ health and urged the secretary to maintain our position as the global leader in biomedical research.
Ranking Member Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) was very critical of the proposed budget and expects the Subcommittee to reject it just as they did in FY26. She also brought attention to other ways in which the Administration is decimating biomedical research, such as delays in releasing funds, fewer new grants, and fewer funding opportunities.
Kennedy gave the same opening statement as he did in the House LHHS hearing.
Subcommittee Member Questions and Concerns
Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), who serves as the Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC), has a long history of supporting NIH, which came through clearly in her comments. She challenged Kennedy on the cancellation of diversity-related grants that are studying health disparities, in particular, gender and racial disparities. Kennedy failed to answer Collins’ question about how NIH can prioritize maternal health without examining health disparities, instead pointing to existing NIH-funded maternal health research and programs.
Collins also revealed her dismay that the budget request includes a 15 percent cap on indirect cost rates despite Congress clearly rejecting that policy last year. She asked Kennedy to work with Congress and the research community to improve transparency and accountability in the indirect cost system without hurting research (see previous FABBS reporting). Later in the session Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) asked Kennedy to confirm that HHS agencies will have a 15 percent cap on overhead costs, which the Secretary did, ignoring Collins’ earlier rebuke.
Several senators raised concerns about NIH grant cancellations and grant money not being released in a timely manner. Baldwin specifically pointed to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institute on Aging. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) flagged cuts and cancellations to diabetes research as directly contradicting the Administration’s stated priorities. When Senator Rounds (D-SD) worried that successful studies – i.e., those that have either produced successful treatments/cures or are progressing towards them – might be caught up in cancellations, Kennedy assured him that NIH has only cancelled grants that violate executive orders (EOs). This does not consider that successful projects might be seen as violating EOs even if they adhere to rigorous scientific standards.
At the close of the hearing, Capito stated for the record that she is concerned about the U.S.’s young researchers who are not being supported here and are therefore susceptible to being “poached” by other countries. Kennedy did not have the opportunity to respond to this issue, but it has been raised in other hearings with NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.
FABBS Efforts
FABBS appreciates the strong bipartisan support for NIH and biomedical and behavioral research displayed on the Hill this past week. We will continue to encourage appropriators to reject cuts to not only NIH but other federal science agencies, including the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES).
