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News and updates

Multiple Lawsuits Filed Against NIH Indirect Cost Move

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On Monday, two separate lawsuits were filed in response to a policy change from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced late Friday. In the first suit, filed Monday morning, attorneys general from 22 states, including Washington, sought to prevent NIH’s move to unilaterally lower the “indirect cost” rates on research grants to 15 percent.

The action in question occurred Friday evening, when the NIH announced a significant reduction in grant funding for research institutions. The announcement declared that the NIH will limit the amount granted to research universities for indirect costs at 15 percent moving forward, on both future and existing grants.

Indirect costs, also referred to as “facilities and administration” (F&A) costs, are the essential-but-behind-the-scenes costs of conducting research. These costs include, but are not limited to, laboratory materials, high-speed data processing, security protections, patient safety, radiation safety and hazardous waste disposal, personnel required to support administrative and compliance work, and many other necessary activities.

Typically, when the government provides a grant to a research university, it includes support for both direct and indirect costs. The indirect cost rates are based on allowable direct costs of research that can be assigned to a research grant. Historically, the federal government has reimbursed the university for a percentage of these allowable direct costs. Indirect costs are never fully reimbursed by the federal government, meaning full costs of research are never fully recovered by the institution performing the research. The level of F&A expenses that the federal government covers for each institution is determined by either the Department of Defense Office of Naval Research or the Department of Health and Human Services and is reviewed every 2 to 4 years through a comprehensive negotiation process.

Late last evening, the court in Massachusetts issued a temporary restraining order against the NIH in response to the suit.

Given the potential implications of such a move by the NIH, three higher education associations in which UW is active—the Association of American Universities (AAU), Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), and American Council on Education (ACE)—took the unprecedented step of also filing a separate lawsuit against the agency Monday evening. The suit seeks a temporary restraining order as well as an injunction against the NIH.

Currently, as a result of the language in funding bills for the NIH dating back to FY2017, the NIH is prohibited from lowering the indirect cost rates unilaterally.

The NIH’s move has received criticism from several Members of the Senate, including Republicans. Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-ME), has issued a statement strongly opposing the NIH move. Republican Senator Katie Britt of Alabama issued a statement encouraging the agency to take a “smart, targeted approach…in order to not hinder life-saving, groundbreaking research at high-achieving institutions…”

Over the weekend, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the Ranking Member of the Appropriations Committee, issued a statement raising strong objections about the NIH move.

Please continue to check back here for additional updates.

Federal Funding Freeze Rescinded

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A controversial memo released by the Trump Administration last week has been rescinded after a federal judge in Rhode Island temporarily blocked it. Just over a week after the inauguration, the new administration announced that it would temporarily halt federal payments to ensure that they were ideologically aligned with the administration’s priorities. The order caused wide-spread concern before U.S. District Chief Judge John McConnel of Rhode Island granted the request for a temporary restraining order sought by a coalition of Democratic-led states, preventing the now-rescinded memo from taking effect. Links to the documents can be found below.

Temporary Restraining Order

Original Office of Management and Budget Memo

 

 

 

 

Tentative Budget Reconciliation Schedule

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President Trump and GOP leadership are moving forward with their plan to advance their agenda through the budget reconciliation process. The tentative schedule of the process is as follows:

Week of Feb. 10: House Budget Committee approves a budget resolution, followed by a House floor vote

Week of Feb. 17: Senate vote-a-rama to adopt a budget resolution

A week to negotiate a bicameral resolution that serves as a compromise between the House and Senate plans

Feb 27: Final vote to adopt a concurrent budget resolution backed by Republicans in both chambers

By Easter (April 20): Pass a reconciliation package in the House floor

By Memorial Day: Final passage

The Trump Administration Begins

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Donald Trump was officially sworn in as the 47th President of the United States on Monday, and quickly got to work, signing a flurry of Executive Orders, pardons, and personnel actions. Many of the most notable actions of his first 24 hours in office relate to immigration, the federal workforce, foreign relations, and those charged with crimes on January 6th, 2021.

One of the most controversial actions taken by Trump, and one that has already garnered legal pushback, is an order to narrow the constitutional definition of those eligible for birthright citizenship. For over a century, birthright citizenship has been considered guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified on July 9, 1868, which states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Under this new order, the Trump Administration seeks to deny the extension of citizenship to persons born in the United States “(1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary…and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.” A coalition of more than twenty Democratic-led states, along with the city of San Francisco and the District of Columbia, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston on Tuesday, alleging that these efforts are unconstitutional.

This was far from the only immigration-related policy enacted during Trump’s first day in office. He also signed several orders seeking to increase border security, including declaring a national emergency, designating numerous cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, restricting funds from sanctuary cities, and reinstating the “Remain in Mexico” policy, among others.

Trump has also issued orders that make it easier to remove career civil servants from the federal government by reinstating “Schedule F,” which states that occupants of career/policy positions are “required to faithfully implement administration policies to the best of their ability, consistent with their constitutional oath and the vesting of executive authority solely in the President. Failure to do so is grounds for dismissal.”

In yet another controversial move, President Trump has issued a sweeping grant of clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Most of those affected by this order will be granted full pardons, effectively wiping all charges from their criminal record. In a separate move, Trump commuted the prison sentences of members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, many of whom were charged with seditious conspiracy. In total, the commutations erased more than 100 years of prison time for the 14 defendants.

Furthermore, among the slew of executive actions taken by President Trump on Monday and Tuesday include a number related to energy and power. Trump declared a national emergency designed to promote the development of energy resources and issued memorandums to restrict and review numerous wind-power projects throughout the country.

Finally, in foreign policy news, Trump issued orders withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Paris Climate Accords. The order withdrawing from the WHO cites the organizations “mishandling” of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the unfair payments extracted from the United Staes as the motivation for leaving.

Many of these executive actions will face significant legal resistance in the coming weeks.

 

 

 

 

119th Congress: Appropriations/Budget Outlook

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Members of the 119th Congress have officially been sworn in, with President-elect Trump soon to follow. Republicans will now look to navigate a number of important pieces of legislation in the coming months, with slim majorities in both chambers.

To start, the latest Continuing Resolution (CR) for FY2025 passed in late December funds the government through March 14th, meaning some of the immediate attention of this Congress—at least that of the appropriators in both chambers—will be focused on funding the government through the end of the fiscal year.

Since the beginning of the Fiscal Year 2025 on October 1, Congress has passed two short-term spending extensions that maintained levels of government spending from the prior year but punted on the important funding decisions that need to be made for the rest of the fiscal year. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) now face the difficult task of attempting to pass appropriations bills in two sharply divided chambers with small majorities.

Regardless of when Congress finishes the appropriations for FY2025, it will need to turn its attention to the FY2026 process.  It is possible that the relevant committees may start crafting legislation for FY2026 before FY2025 is fully wrapped up.  The FY2025 process started under the Biden Administration, and the new Republican Congressional majorities and the new incoming Trump Administration after the November elections wanted to hold off on finishing it in order to give the new Trump team an opportunity to shape the remainder of the year.  With the vast majority of the FY2025 bill already drafted, it remains to be seen how the negotiations to finish out the year will turn out.  It is against this backdrop that FY2026 will kick off, with Republicans fully in control.  The FY2026 appropriations process will be affected by the incoming Administration’s budget request. The budget is due by the first Monday in February, though this is typically delayed and will almost certainly be late during a transition year.

Additionally, President-elect Trump and GOP leaders in both chambers have stated their intent to pass much of Trump’s agenda through budget reconciliation early in the year, a very exacting and complicated process through which mandatory spending levels must be addressed.  The benefit of this process is that changes being mandated by it can be passed with a simple majority in the Senate, thus avoiding the filibuster. This plan has generated the most attention on the budget front for the new Administration and Congress.  This plan has already been complicated, however, by disagreements within the Republican party.

At the end of the day, in broad terms, the GOP’s goals for reconciliation are to pass immigration and tax legislation as well as bring about changes to other mandatory programs.

With respect to the process, House GOP leaders have spoken in favor of passing one large reconciliation bill, which would include tax, defense, and immigration provisions. House leaders argue that the one-bill approach will build maximum support within the party, and have also noted the difficulty of passing two reconciliation bills in the same year.

Senate GOP leaders, however, believe that a two-pronged approach would put the party in a better position. Passing an initial bill focused on border and security legislation would give Trump an early win, Senate leaders say, while also allowing for more time to construct the complicated and time-consuming changes to tax law to be passed in the second bill.

Trump initially voiced support for the House approach, though he walked back his commitment the next day, saying he was open to either approach. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) publicly shared that party leaders may need several more weeks to agree on a plan. Per Scalise, the party is “moving forward under the guise of one bill…how we do it is a discussion, but what we’re doing is not under discussion. Everybody’s focused on the same thing.”

Both Scalise and Johnson have both stated that they would like to move a reconciliation package through the House by the end of April.