Pentagon tried to divert $42B NIH funds for defense

The Pentagon is trying to take billions of dollars from the National Institutes of Health to spend on defense, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee said Thursday. Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut said Trump administration officials only recently told Congress that the Defense Department had signed an interagency agreement to redirect NIH funds. She called the move a “brazen attempt to raid” biomedical research money at a time when the country is fighting a pandemic.

NIH funding supports cancer research, Alzheimer’s studies, infectious disease work and other life-saving science. The Pentagon’s plan would take money Congress already allocated for those projects and use it instead for defense programs. DeLauro said the administration did not disclose the move until after Congress had finished its annual spending bills. That leaves lawmakers little time to stop the transfer before the end of the fiscal year on September 30. The revelation follows years of tension between Congress and the Pentagon over how to pay for defense priorities without cutting other vital programs.

DeLauro’s office provided no exact dollar figure for the proposed transfer, but NIH’s annual budget is about $42 billion. Past disputes over similar transfers have involved amounts in the hundreds of millions. DeLauro has long opposed using NIH funds for defense, arguing that cures and vaccines cannot wait for budget battles. She said the administration’s move undermines scientific progress and violates Congress’s constitutional power of the purse. NIH officials have not commented publicly on the plan.

House Democrats are expected to include language in upcoming spending bills to block the transfer. The Senate, which has more Republican members, will have to agree. If both chambers pass the bills, President Trump would have to sign them into law. DeLauro said she is working with colleagues to ensure the funds stay with NIH. The standoff highlights a broader fight over how to balance defense spending with scientific research, especially as the U.S. continues to battle COVID-19 and prepare for future health threats.