Ranking Member DeLauro Statement at Fiscal Year 2027 Department of Health and Human Services Budget Hearing
House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) delivered the following remarks at the Fiscal Year 2027 Department of Health and Human Services Budget Hearing:
-As Prepared For Delivery-
Thank you, Chairman Aderholt, for convening this hearing today on President Trump’s proposed budget for the Department of Health and Human Services. And thank you, Secretary Kennedy, for taking the time to join us today, and answer our questions.
Secretary Kennedy, you and I spoke on the phone recently about this, but I want to commend you today on your recent efforts to reduce the amount of microplastics in American drinking water.
You know as well as I the pervasive problem these contaminants pose, and I applaud your and the Department’s efforts, alongside the EPA, to classify microplastics for the first time as water contaminants.
Microplastics have been shown to cause damage to our respiratory system, increase our risk of heart attack and stroke, and potentially lead to colon and lung cancer, along with a slew of other negative health effects. They have been found just about everywhere and in just about everyone. Even newborns enter the world with microplastics already in their bodies.
We must act quickly and seriously to stop this pollution of ourselves and our planet, and this designation is an important step in the right direction. I thank you for your efforts in this regard.
I was very proud of the work that Chairman Aderholt and I, and every Member of this Subcommittee, were able to do earlier this year on the fiscal year 2026 funding bill for the Departments of Labor, HHS, and Education.
It illustrated that despite partisan divisions we can still come together on a bipartisan basis, negotiate in good faith, and forge an agreement that passed overwhelmingly.
I was extremely disappointed to see that the White House budget request did not build on the progress we made but instead proposed extreme cuts to programs that the American people rely on.
Secretary Kennedy, the budget request proposes a $16.5 billion cut to health agencies funded by this subcommittee – that adds up to 14 percent. Frankly, it signals a lack of good faith on the part of the administration, and indicates to me a shameful reversion to the same extremism we found in the pages of Project 2025.
The President is failing the American people. He is failing to bring down the rising cost of living – which he promised to do again and again on the campaign trail.
Instead of taking any action to bring down costs, he has called affordability a “con job.” Just the other day he said, “the United States can’t take care of day care” or Medicare or Medicaid, because “We’re fighting wars.” Wars of choice, not necessity, that the vast majority of Americans are opposed to.
The President wants to increase funding for the Pentagon by half a trillion dollars to fight his wars overseas. Meanwhile, his budget proposal includes no increase in funding for child care.
Inflation is surging – the cost of gas, groceries, and everyday necessities is climbing day by day. And all this administration has done is start more wars, raise more tariffs, and create more uncertainty – but no relief for the American people.
The only thing this administration has managed to accomplish is cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations, paid for – although only in part – by defunding Medicaid and nutrition assistance by $1.2 trillion, and pushing 15 million people off of their health insurance. The consequences of these cuts will extend far beyond just Medicaid enrollees. They will raise the cost of coverage for everyone.
Under your tenure atop HHS, you have fired thousands of Department personnel, decimated our public health system, incapacitated critical health agencies like the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, and the Administration for Healthcare Research and Quality, or AHRQ. [Ark]
Almost 300 CDC staff have been on administrative leave for over a year. You are paying them not to work.
Officials at SAMHSA have not directly responded to inquiries from the Committee for a full year, undermining our oversight responsibility. The HHS funding bill we passed in January requires monthly agency briefings for the Committee, but not a single one has been scheduled.
It has been even longer since AHRQ awarded funding for a new research grant. As far as we can tell, they have ceased to function as independent health agencies.
Over the past year, Mr. Secretary, you terminated hundreds of NIH research grants simply because they touched on topics like racial health disparities, or gender minorities, or vaccine research. Not because there was any problem with the research being conducted; not because they were breaking any rules; but because they were researching issues that you just personally do not like. We must fund research that is based on scientific evidence, not subjective opinion.
This administration has extorted public universities in order to extract ideological concessions. Again, the problem here was not that they were engaged in misconduct, but that you just did not agree with them politically. You chose to use your power to force them to agree with you. And this is a pattern that extends beyond public funding for health research.
In August you fired the director of the CDC, Susan Monarez, because she refused to put blind loyalty to your personal beliefs, above empirical data and scientific research.
You replaced the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel with people who share your anti-vaccine agenda. Fortunately, a federal judge blocked their attempts to gut the Childhood Immunization Schedule. The judge correctly ruled that your hand-picked advisors were, quote, “distinctly unqualified” due to their lack of vaccine expertise.
You are the Secretary of Health and Human Services. You have been in this position for 14 months. If you still claim, today, that you have not “seen the evidence” that supports vaccines, that is a remarkable failure of your leadership, and evidence of a willful refusal to avail yourself of information that is extremely relevant to your role in government. Some of the leading experts in this field work at the CDC, but you are unwilling to even meet with them.
In 2025, measles cases in the US shot up to more than 2,200. In the first 3 months of 2026, there have already been more than 1,700 measles cases. We have seen outbreaks in South Carolina, Texas, Florida, and Utah. Under your leadership, the US is on the brink of losing its measles elimination status, which we have held for more than 25 years.
In January, HHS attempted to block $10 billion in federal funding for child care and assistance for needy families in five states with Democratic leadership. Once again, a federal judge blocked you, but it did not prevent you from attempting to coerce the public in the first place.
Now we are more than halfway through the fiscal year, and grant-making at HHS has slowed to a trickle. The administration is withholding billions of dollars owed to states and communities – money that came from their taxes.
For the last 10 weeks, OMB has used unprecedented 15-day apportionments to prohibit HHS agencies from making grants to carry out their programs, which is the core function of many HHS agencies. Only this week, as you are testifying before Congress, did OMB finally release those funds.
It should not take a congressional hearing for OMB to release funds appropriated by Congress to your agencies.
The Constitution is clear: Congress has the power of the purse. It is the Executive Branch’s job to execute the laws we pass. Not manipulate the process to advance a partisan agenda.
The President’s budget proposes to cut funding for NIH research by $6 billion. We are not going to do that, I will just tell you that right now. You propose cutting CDC funding by 30 percent, we are not going to do that.
You propose eliminating the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which helps prevent overdose and supports people with substance use disorders, we are not going to do that.
You propose eliminating the LIHEAP program, which would raise energy costs for 6 million American households, even as President Trump’s war with Iran has led to a 40 percent increase in the price of gas, you can be sure: we are not going to do that.
None of these proposals makes Americans better off. All of them make it more expensive or more difficult for people to live their lives. Mr. Secretary, you cannot strengthen public health systems by defunding the CDC. You cannot support medical research by cutting $6 billion from the NIH. And you cannot improve access to quality healthcare by kicking 15 million people off of their health insurance.
I will have more questions for you Mr. Secretary when the time comes. I look forward to hearing your answers.
Thank you, I yield back.
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