Throughout March, Congress and the Administration continued to struggle with completing the lone outstanding Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As TSA agents missed paychecks and proposals were lobed back and forth, policymakers have yet to find a compromise. Congress is also now contending with a request for $200 billion in supplemental defense funding for U.S. activity in the Middle East, and the ensuing debate on Capitol Hill is likely to cover additional funding for non-defense programs.
The lack of final FY 2026 appropriations for DHS, delayed the release of the President’s annual budget request to Congress, which would traditionally serve as the start of the FY 2027 appropriations process. Both the House and Senate though have begun moving forward with crafting their annual spending bills without administration input. The House has provided the opportunity to submit written testimony on Labor-HHS-Educaton (L-HHS) priorities by April 16 with a current goal of marking up an FY 27 L-HHS spending bill in mid-June. The Senate is following the House’s lead and has announced request deadlines around then end of April with markups likely taking place later in June.
Congress is also increasingly concerned over leadership at the NIH and the ability to commit grant funding and drive research portfolios forward. The NIH Director was summoned before House appropriators to discuss his dual role as Acting CDC Director, to answer questions about the lack of installed Institute and Center Directors, and to hear concerns about the slow pace of grant review. It is unclear what next steps Congress might take as reports about disruptions in funding from the CR and the inability to efficiently complete grant reviews swirl around the agency.
CCTS is actively engaged in the FY 2027 appropriations process and once again supporting community funding requests while leading on efforts to advance CTSAs, IDeA, and other programs. CCTS will be asking Congress to:
- Please provide NIH with at least $51.3 billion, roughly a 8.5% increase over FY 2026.
- Please provide the National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) at NIH with at least a proportional 8.5% funding increase for FY 2026.
- Please provide at least $660 million in dedicated line-item funding for the flagship Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program, an increase of $30.5 million over FY 2026.
- Please provide continued funding increases for NIGMS and the IDeA Program.
- Please provide the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with at least $11.58 billion, an estimated increase of $2.37 billion over FY 2026.
- Please provide the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) with at least $500 million, an estimated increase of roughly $150 million over FY 2026.
Written by: Dane Christiansen and Kira Flaherty, Washington Representatives (the Health and Medicine Counsel)