At the start of the month, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directed the Transportation Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to rescind a collective $1.5 billion in grant funding from California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota, with $602 million in health care funding being clawed back.
An OMB spokesperson said at the time that the rescissions were targeting "woke" healthcare grants within "states fraught with waste and mismanagement."
Senate Democrats representing the affected states as well as those in leaderships positions on key committees lambasted this action in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., seen first by The Hill.
"The administration has allegedly deemed the $600 million in grant funding as 'inconsistent with agency priorities.' Despite this claim, the administration's effort guts essential public health infrastructure, as well as testing and treatment for lethal diseases, including HIV. Should the administration move forward with these planned cuts, basic public health infrastructure in California, Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota will be threatened," their letter stated.
They decried that "no explanation" has been given regarding how these grants were judged as being inconsistent.
The targeted funds included $3 million to Colorado to address COVID-19 disparities among racial and ethnic minority groups; $5.2 million to a Chicago children's hospital for increasing HIV PrEP use among Black cisgender women; and half a million to the University of California for evaluating state-level laws to prevent sexual and intimate partner violence among gender and sexual minorities.
"These latest grant terminations also fall on the heels of your recent attempt to terminate 2,800 grants and $2 billion in funding supporting mental health and substance use prevention and treatment programs nationwide, as well as your attempt to pause all activities under CDC's PHIG program nationwide," added the senators. "Those actions were so reckless and deadly that both decisions were reversed within 24 hours."
The senators demanded that the administration reverse all rescissions.
The lawmakers who signed the letter included Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff (Calif.), Alex Padilla (Calif.), Dick Durbin (Ill.), Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Tina Smith (Minn.), Michael Bennet (Colo.), John Hickenlooper (Colo.), Patty Murray (Wash.), Tammy Baldwin (Wis.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
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