FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Media Relations
The Senate FY 2025 Labor-HHS-Education spending bill, passed by the full Appropriations Committee in a strong bipartisan vote yesterday, provides modest, yet important, increases for key public health agencies and programs. Unlike the House bill, which contains drastic cuts to many critical programs and numerous new anti-public health policy riders, the Senate Appropriations Committee has once again worked in a bipartisan manner to produce a compromise bill that rejects senseless cuts and controversial policy riders.
While we are pleased that the Senate Appropriations Committee rejected cuts to programs under 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 once again credit the leadership of Chairs Murray and Baldwin, Vice Chair Collins and Ranking member Capito, and the other members of the committee who supported this bipartisan effort that rejects the ill-conceived spending cuts in the House bill.
The Senate bill would, specifically:
- Increase overall funding for CDC by $173 million and HRSA by $34.3 million.
- Increase funding for CDC’s Public Health Infrastructure and Capacity program.
- Increase funding for CDC’s Public Health Data Modernization Initiative.
- 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 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.
Now that both chambers have passed bills out of committee, it is time for the House and Senate to work together to pass the strongest possible FY 2025 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill as soon as possible, and at least at the levels proposed in the Senate bill. We are hopeful the bipartisan efforts will continue, and we urge negotiators to reject any additional cuts to public health programs or the inclusion of divisive anti-public health policy riders, which would negatively impact the grantees in every state 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 optimal, equitable health and well-being for all. With our broad-based member community and 150-year perspective, we influence federal policy to improve the public’s health. Learn more at www.apha.org.