By Kritika Agarwal
Lawmakers left Washington for the holidays without making progress on any of the remaining nine FY26 appropriations bills. The lack of movement will put increasing pressure on lawmakers when they return in the new year and face a January 30 deadline for finalizing plans before current funding runs out.
The remaining nine bills will determine the FY26 budgets of many of the United States’ premier scientific research agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and NASA.
On Friday, AAU President Barbara R. Snyder sent a letter to the House and Senate appropriations committees providing comments on the remaining bills and asking lawmakers to “ensure that the final measures prioritize robust investments in American science and education programs” and “retain policy provisions that promote the U.S. research enterprise and reject those that would impede American innovation and discovery.”
Among other things, the letter asked lawmakers to:
- Support language included in several Senate appropriations bills acknowledging the work of the Joint Associations Group (JAG) on Indirect Costs, which has developed an alternative model for determining how federal agencies reimburse universities and research institutions for the costs associated with conducting research on behalf of the American people. AAU also asked lawmakers to support provisions in the bills that block federal agencies from unilaterally implementing caps on such reimbursements.
- Provide $47.2 billion for the National Institutes of Health, $9 billion for the National Science Foundation, $24.9 billion for NASA, and $8.6 billion for the Department of Energy Office of Science.
- Retain the maximum Pell Grant award of $7,395 and reject the drastic cuts to the program proposed in the president’s budget request.
- Reject cuts to several Department of Education programs, including the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG), Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN), international education programs, and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). The letter asked lawmakers to oppose a provision that would rescind unspent funds from the IES.
- Retain a provision in the Senate Labor-Health and Human Services-Education bill (Section 239) that would limit the NIH’s use of a multi-year funding mechanism that has led to the agency awarding thousands of fewer grants in FY25 compared to FY24.
- Reject drastic cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
AAU will continue monitoring the appropriations process in the new year and reminding members of Congress of the immense importance of including robust funding for scientific research and higher education in the FY26 appropriations bills.
Kritika Agarwal is assistant vice president for communications at AAU.