LATEST FROM DC
ON THE HILL
IN THE COURTS
IN THE ADMINISTRATION
ASTMH continues to advocate before Congress and the Biden administration. Letters that ASTMH led or joined include:
- Letter thanking members of Congress for introducing a resolution to safeguard vaccine and immunization efforts through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
- Letter calling on congressional leadership to fully appropriate the necessary non-defense discretionary funds in fiscal year (FY) 2025 to keep pace with rising costs and avoid poison pill policy riders.
ON THE HILL
House Churns Through Appropriations Process, Senate Races to Catch Up
The House Appropriations Committee recently released its FY2025 Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (LHHS) appropriations
bill and accompanying
report (congressional reports accompany appropriations measures and provide critical direction to federal agencies on how to interpret or obligate funding). Following a marathon markup, the House Appropriations Committee
approved the LHHS bill on a party line vote, 31 to 25. The bill, which includes funding for global health programs at CDC and NIH, proposes several significant funding cuts and controversial policy provisions, including a proposed NIH restructuring that would split up and consolidate various institutes (explained further below). While these reductions and potential policy impacts raise concern, it is important to remember that the current spending proposal reflects House GOP priorities that will inevitably be remediated by a Democratic-controlled Senate—meaning the bill as currently written is unlikely to make it into law. Meanwhile, in the upper chamber, the Senate Appropriations Committee began marking up several “least controversial” spending bills (Agriculture, Military Construction-VA, and Legislative Branch spending measures) and determining subcommittee spending allocations (known as 302(b)s), which will help determine a funding blueprint for the LHHS spending bill. With August recess on the horizon, we will likely see a lightning round of appropriations work in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!
E&C Committee Proposes NIH Overhaul, Passed by House Appropriations Committee
In June, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) unveiled a
framework to dramatically restructure NIH. In an
op-ed, McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and House LHHS Subcommittee Chairman Robert Aderholt (R-AL) stated that reform is “imperative to build a stronger and more accountable NIH” given “concerns raised during and after the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to maximize the impact of taxpayer money.” At a high level, the framework proposes a major reorganization of NIH that could impact global health initiatives. These changes include, but are not limited to, decreasing the numbers of NIH Institutes and Centers from 27 to 15 centers; splitting National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Disease (NIAID) into two; consolidating Fogarty International Center into a new center with other institutes and centers; and merging the work of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) with existing institutes at NIH, among other significant changes. As mentioned above, the reorganization part of the proposal was recently approved along party lines by the House Appropriations Committee as part of the FY25 LHHS spending measure and is still subject to negotiation as the appropriations process continues. For more details on the details of the NIH overhaul, check out this
blog post written by ASTMH CEO Jamie Bay Nishi and Jodie Curtis, Senior Policy Advisor, Venable LLP.
Senate Holds Hearing on COVID-19 Origins
In June, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
held a hearing, Origins of Covid-19: An Examination of Available Evidence. The committee heard from four academic experts on various hypothesis on the origins of the pandemic. In his opening statement, committee Chair Gary Peters (D-MI) acknowledged the possibility of a natural spillover and, more notably, a lab-leak hypothesis. “There are theories that indicate COVID-19 began either by entering the human population through entirely natural means or possibly through a lab accident,” Sen. Peters
said in his opening statement. Witnesses were divided on COVID’s origin. “I believe available evidence points most strongly to a natural zoonotic spillover event as the origin of the pandemic. However, a research-related accident can’t be ruled out at this time,” Gregory Koblentz, Associate Professor and Director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, told the committee.
Stakeholder Input on Cures Act 2.0
Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-CO) and Congressman Larry Bucshon, MD (R-IN) are
requesting stakeholder feedback to build upon the progress of the 21st Century Cures Act, landmark legislation passed in 2016 to advance biomedical research, and further the ideas of Cures 2.0 Act, previously introduced by Rep. DeGette and former Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) in 2021. The feedback will inform the next-generation cures bill for introduction in the 119
th Congress. As a reminder, the original objectives of Cures 2.0 helped establish ARPA-H and expedite U.S. FDA approvals, among other advancements to public health. Comments are due by August 2.
IN THE COURTS
Supreme Court Undercuts Chevron Doctrine, Limiting Authority of Federal Agencies
In a blockbuster
decision, the Supreme Court recently overturned a 40-year old precedent—the Chevron deference—that directed federal courts to defer to federal agencies in interpreting ambiguous or vague parts of statutes enacted by Congress. The seismic decision could now significantly limit agencies’ latitude to broadly interpret how laws should be carried out. To avoid legal challenges in a post-Chevron era, agencies will need much more prescriptive direction from Congress on how laws should be implemented and on other rulemaking questions, which may shift how lawmakers draft legislation going forward. “[Chevron] has become part of the warp and woof of modern government, supporting regulatory efforts of all kinds—to name a few, keeping air and water clean, food and drugs safe, and financial markets honest,” said Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan in her
dissent on behalf of the liberal justices. “And given Chevron’s pervasiveness, the decision to [overturn] is likely to produce large-scale disruption.”
IN THE ADMINISTRATION
State Department Announces Cuts to PEPFAR
Politico
reported that the Biden Administration intends to cut funding by more than 6% in FY25 from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has been confirmed by the State Department. The State Department explained that these reductions are due to depletion of prior-year surplus funds. Preliminary figures seen by
Politico suggest that there will be reductions in programs for key populations, ranging from 3% in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to 29% in Burundi. While final amounts have not been released as of this writing, the State Department recently posted an
update indicating that “average planned programmatic funding reductions from fiscal year 2024 to 2025 will be lower for those activities targeting key populations, compared with reductions in overall program funding for PEPFAR-supported countries and regions.”
White House Addresses SFOPS Bill
The White House issued a
Statement of Administration Policy opposing the House’s passage of the FY25 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations (SFOPS) spending bill (H.R. 8771), which provides funding for key global health programs at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The statement calls out the bill’s partisan policy provisions and asserted that the President would veto the bill, if presented. As for global health policy, President Biden stated that he opposes the funding cuts to global health programs included in the bill and urged Congress to fully fund the global health security line to $900 million, calling these initiatives critical to making “the United States and the world safer from the growing frequency and impact of biological threats, including those with natural, accidental or deliberate origin.” Additionally, President Biden condemned the included prohibition of funding to the WHO and warned that proposed restrictions could hamper the United States’ ability to engage in international agreements “designed to protect Americans from biological threats, including those that might cause the next pandemic, and would directly undermine our national security, putting the health and safety of Americans at risk.”
U.S. Coordinator for Global Health Security Highlights Global Health Strategy
At a Center for Strategic and International Studies event in Washington, DC, U.S. Global Health Security Coordinator Dr. Stephanie Psaki
shed light on various priorities of the
new Global Health Security (GHS) Strategy and more about her coordinating role. In particular, she explained the different criteria that went into selecting GHS partner countries and pointed to the administration’s new
website outlining the partnerships. Additionally, she emphasized an increased interagency focus on developing cohesive strategies to address One Health and how zoonotic disease is a common area partnership. As for her role, Dr. Psaki stated that she is specifically involved in coordinating the interagency effort to implement the GHS strategy.
New Resource on Federal Global Health Leadership
KFF published a list of key global health positions and officials in the U.S. Government. The helpful resource can be found
here.