Kelly, Colleagues Demand OMB Director Abandon Any and All Plans to Exert Political Control Over NIH Funding

Lawmakers emphasize need for Republicans to join Democrats and support new guardrails to protect the integrity of NIH’s grantmaking process following Trump administration’s politically motivated attacks on science Senators Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Patty Murray (D-WA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and 28 of their colleagues demanded White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought halt any plan to politicize the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) grant-making process. The Trump administration’s consideration of an executive order creating a committee of unqualified political appointees to veto individual NIH awards selected by panels of scientific experts is the latest example of why Congress must step in. In their letter , the lawmakers underscored that the executive order is the latest way OMB has sought to undermine the scientific peer review process. The Trump administration has shown time and again it wants to use NIH funding to pursue political agendas and vendettas at the expense of life-saving research, treatments, and cures for millions of Americans. “Injecting political interference into the NIH grantmaking process will irreparably harm America’s biomedical research enterprise, override scientific expertise, and potentially set back lifesaving medical breakthroughs by decades,” wrote the senators. The lawmakers noted that reports about the Trump administration pausing an executive order to scrutinize NIH grants is little relief given the president’s long string of attacks on the agency: “That such an Executive Order was considered at all makes clear that despite Congress acting to temporarily block OMB’s proposed rule, this administration intends to continue to pursue efforts to undermine NIH and its grantmaking process. If not by Executive Order or a new government-wide rule, the Trump administration will simply pursue alternative administrative means that put politics over science and undermine the biomedical research enterprise we have built in this country over more than a century that is the envy of the world.” The senators explained that given the administration’s attacks, it’s critical Congress take additional steps to put guardrails in place, something Senate Democrats have been pushing to do over the last 18 months: “Congress must step in to establish guardrails to protect American biomedical science. We urge our Republican colleagues to work with us on legislation to do much more to protect NIH from the Trump administration, which has proven over and over again to be dead set on picking political fights at the expense of advancing lifesaving treatments and cures for millions of Americans.” “We write to call on you to abandon any plan to exert political control over NIH’s grant-making decisions — whether that’s through your proposed rule, a new Executive Order, or any other means—that would empower political appointees to deny funding for grant applications that have already been deemed meritorious by the NIH peer-review and Advisory Council process. Patients and families are already paying an enormous price because of this administration’s nonstop attacks on the NIH—the last thing they need is for their hopes for new treatments and cures to be pushed farther out of view because you want to put politics ahead of saving lives,” the senators concluded. In addition to NIH, Kelly has rejected similar efforts to destabilize grant funding at the Department of Education and Office of Management and Budget . Along with Senators Kelly, Murray, and Baldwin, the letter was also signed by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Chris Coons (D-DE), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Angus King Jr. (I-ME), Jeffrey Merkley (D-OR), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Mark Warner (D-VA), Edward Markey (D-MA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Gary Peters (D-MI), Brian Schatz (D-HI), and Adam Schiff (D-CA). Click here to read full letter.