Overview

• On July 29, the Office of Management and Budget inserted a footnote limiting NIH funds to salaries and operations and blocking new grants, effectively freezing about $15 billion in external research funding.
• Hours later, after pushback from HHS officials and a bipartisan letter from 14 senators led by Katie Britt, OMB lifted the restriction and NIH resumed awarding grants while internal teams work to fully remove the pause.
• The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 26-3 to reject President Trump’s proposed 40 percent, $18 billion cut to the NIH and instead endorsed a $400 million increase, preserving all 27 institutes and centers.
• Bipartisan lawmakers condemned the footnote as an overreach that infringed on Congress’s power of the purse and warned against further attempts to withhold appropriated research funding.
• The episode underscores escalating tensions between the administration’s funding controls and congressional authority over biomedical research priorities and U.S. global competitiveness.