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Oregon’s two U.S. senators and the state’s senior member in the U.S. House of Representatives today pledged to fight budget cuts at the National Institutes of Health that threaten to starve research at Oregon Health & Science University.
The legislators held a Zoom meeting (because of the weather) with OHSU staff to describe the damage that would be done to research at OHSU and other institutions by cuts made by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, his billionaire adviser.
The University of Oregon, Oregon State University and the University of Portland also get research money from the NIH. It total the state receives almost $1 billion from the agency each year. Those grants support 5,000 jobs in Oregon, according to United for Medical Research, a nonprofit that advocates for NIH funding.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) called the cuts “illegal and unconstitutional” because they defied the will of Congress, which holds the power of the purse, including at the NIH. Article 1 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to impose taxes and allocate funds for national priorities.
“This is going from democracy to dictatorship,” Merkley said.
Leaders at OHSU have been scrambling since last Friday, when the NIH issued “supplemental guidance” to its grants policy, saying that it planned to slash the amount of money awarded for “indirect costs” like office space and maintenance to 15% of every grant.
Institutions negotiate that percentage, and OHSU’s rate has been 56%. That means that for every $100,00O that OHSU gets from NIH to pay for researchers' salaries, office space and supplies, it gets an additional $56,000 for indirect costs. At the new rate, OHSU would get just $15,000.
The total loss to OHSU would be between $60 million and $80 million, chief research officer Peter Barr-Gillespie said on the Zoom meeting today. Its total research budget is $900 million, but much of that money is restricted and can’t be uses for infrastructure like buildings, electricity and heat.
“If this rule goes through, it will cripple our ability to do biomedical research at OHSU,” Barr-Gillespie said.
The cuts are on hold for now because U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley in Massachusetts granted a request from 21 state attorneys general, including Oregon AG Dan Rayfield, for a temporary restraining order blocking them. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Feb. 21.
If the TRO is removed, the cuts can begin immediately. The notice from Trump’s NIH said they would go into effect on Feb. 10. The best case for now, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D) said, would be to get a preliminary injunction from the Massachusetts judge, which would block the cuts for longer.
It’s unclear what Congress can do to block the cuts beyond urging action by judges like the one in Massachusetts.
“There is always the assumption that when a court says ‘Reverse what you’re doing’ that the executive branch will actually obey that,” Merkley said. “That has been brought into serious question by comment of the president, the vice president and by the attitude of the director of the Office of Management and Budget.”
“We have a president who believes in an imperial presidency,” Merkley said. “That is the troubled space we’re in, and it’s going to affect health care the way it affects every other sector.”
Sen. Ron Wyden (D), who convened the call, railed against Trump and Musk, calling their cuts “political quackery that is as chilling as today’s weather.” Slashing funding at the NIH will lead to more sickness and death, he said.
“Elon Musk will realize soon enough that diseases can affect Republicans as well,” Wyden said. “If you and your loved ones don’t have your health, then everything else goes by the boards.”
Both Merkley and Wyden cited OHSU’s recent breakthrough on early detection for pancreatic cancer, which was funded in part by NIH dollars.
“This is personal for me,” Merkley said. “I’ve lost several friends to pancreatic cancer.”
Bonamici said the cuts would kill people. “People will die if Trump and Musk go through with these cuts,” she said.