Senator Murray on OMB Blocking CDC Funds to Protect People’s Health—Just Days After OMB Froze $15 Billion in NIH Funding
Murray slams reckless funding freezes, complete lack of transparency as OMB cuts off funds in secrecy despite legal requirement to make public its funding decisions
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement on new reports today that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is preventing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from spending large chunks of funding for mission critical work that it is required to conduct.
The news comes just days after OMB similarly blocked the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from accessing roughly $15 billion in funding provided for lifesaving research into treatments and cures—and then quickly reversed course after the blockage was made public. In both instances, OMB has used the apportionment process—the process by which OMB makes appropriated funds legally available for agencies to spend—to prevent agencies from spending funding Congress has provided.
OMB’s apportionments should all be public for the American people to see how any administration is managing taxpayer dollars as a bipartisan law requires apportionments to be posted on a public website. But OMB Director Russ Vought yanked the website offline in March and has refused to restore it despite bipartisan demands to do just that. Last week, a court ruled OMB must restore the website. These instances of OMB choking off funds for critical programs Congress has funded underscores the importance of transparency around OMB’s apportionments—and they raise enormous questions about what else Director Vought may be doing to choke off funds while hiding it from the American public. OMB is very likely prohibiting agencies from spending other funds Congress appropriated to provide critical support to states, communities, and families across the country on a range of issues.
Notably, in President Trump’s first term, OMB illegally used the apportionment process to cut off security assistance for Ukraine.
“On Tuesday, President Trump and Russ Vought quietly moved to cut off roughly $15 billion in NIH funding for medical research from being spent—then quickly backtracked when news of the decision was made public.
“Now, we know they are similarly preventing the CDC from accessing funding Congress has provided for it to carry out absolutely essential work: preventing chronic diseases like kidney disease and diabetes from cutting people’s lives short, tackling youth violence, and equipping communities to address public health threats. These funds help keep families safe and healthy—and there’s no justification whatsoever for abruptly cutting off this work.
“None of this should be happening—and it certainly shouldn’t be happening in the dark of night, which is exactly what’s going on right now as this administration systematically hides what it’s doing with your taxpayer dollars and investments Congress has made. When Russ Vought pulled down a key spending transparency website this spring, Congresswoman DeLauro and I asked: what is he hiding? Now, we have just the start of an answer: blocking funding for medical research and to prevent chronic diseases.
“All of this begs a huge question: what other funding are Trump and Vought holding up?
“The American people deserve accountability for these reckless decisions—and they deserve transparency about how their taxpayer dollars are being used. The spending website needs to go back up, these dollars needs to flow, and this administration needs to stop breaking the law to hurt American families.”
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