States sue Trump admin over billions in research cuts
WASHINGTON – A group of 22 states is suing the Trump administration over a cap the Department of Health and Human Services set on funding for research overhead, saying it would cut billions of dollars from valuable medical studies.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the head of the Appropriations Committee in the Senate, also said she opposed “this poorly conceived directive.” She said federal law prohibits changing the reimbursement policy in the middle of the fiscal year.
The dispute is over a 15% cap the department and the National Institutes of Health adopted Feb. 7 for what are called “indirect costs” for research. The funding category covers laboratory space, faculty, equipment and utilities.
The Trump administration, and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, is searching for ways to cut trillions of dollars in federal spending.
NIH said in a post on X that $9 billion of the $35 billion it granted last year for research was used for administrative overhead. The goal of the policy capping overhead at 15% is to save $4 billion per year.
But critics of the research funding cap said it could lead to layoffs, disruptions in clinical trials and even laboratory closures.
New York, for example, has $5 billion in NIH grants to institutions statewide and estimated it would lose $850 million under the policy.
“This is yet another unlawful and reckless attempt by the Trump administration to undermine vital public institutions and harm the people who rely on them,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “The administration’s decision to cap NIH reimbursement rates could force scientists to shutter their lifesaving research on cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, addiction, infectious diseases, and more.”
The department didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
Other states participating in the lawsuit are Arizona, California, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
In Maine, Collins said she heard from Jackson Laboratory, the University of Maine, Maine Medical Center Research Institute, the University of New England and others that the funding cuts “would be devastating.”
She said she contacted Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee to become secretary of Health and Human Services, on Monday to register her opposition. Kennedy said he would examine the policy if confirmed, she said.
“I oppose the poorly conceived directive imposing an arbitrary cap on the indirect costs that are part of NIH grants and negotiated between the grant recipient and NIH,” Collins said in a statement.