FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Media Relations
The Senate FY 2024 Labor-HHS-Education spending bill, passed by the full Appropriations Committee in a bipartisan vote yesterday, maintains level funding for most public health agencies and programs. This is in sharp contrast to the bill reported by the House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee, which contains drastic cuts to many critical programs and includes numerous new anti-public health policy riders. We are thankful the Senate bill does not adopt any of the new policy riders included in the House bill.
While we are pleased that the Senate Appropriations Committee rejected steep cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Resources and Services Administration, we know that these agencies and their programs remain woefully underfunded. We recognize the tight spending caps that severely limited the resources available to the committee for this and other nondefense discretionary spending bills. We credit the leadership of Chair Murray and Vice Chair Collins and the other members of the committee for their bipartisan work to reject the ill-conceived spending cuts in the House bill.
The Senate bill would, specifically:
- Maintain the current level of funding for gun violence prevention research at CDC and the National Institutes of Health.
- Maintain funding for CDC’s Climate and Health programs, which provide some states and communities with resources to protect the public from health threats caused by climate change, including the ongoing extreme heat we are experiencing over a significant portion of the U.S.
- Maintain CDC’s Public Health Infrastructure and Capacity funding.
- Maintain the current funding level for the Title X Family Planning Program.
- Continue funding for the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative at both CDC and HRSA.
- Continue funding for HRSA programs to increase diversity in the health workforce.
We are hopeful the bipartisan efforts will continue as the Senate and House come together to finalize the FY 2024 appropriations process, and we urge negotiators to reject any additional cuts to public health programs or the inclusion of divisive anti-public health policy riders.
Congress must work together to pass the strongest possible FY 2024 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill as soon as possible and avoid a government shutdown, which could negatively impact the grantees that rely on CDC and HRSA funding and ultimately have devastating effects on the public’s health.
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The American Public Health Association champions the health of all people and all communities. We are the only organization that combines a 150-year perspective, a broad-based member community and the ability to influence federal policy to improve the public’s health. Learn more at www.apha.org.