Trump Picks Jay Bhattacharya to lead NIH

Posted on December 11, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to be his Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH is the nation’s leading public research agency. Research supported by the agency has led to more than 100 Nobel Prizes and over 99 percent of the drugs approved by federal regulators from 2010 to 2019. The agency gives out roughly $25 billion in research grants to universities each year. The UW is one of the top recipients of NIH grant funding.

Dr. Bhattacharya, a Stanford physician and economist, gained prominence during the pandemic for his criticism of lockdown procedures. According to his Stanford colleagues, Bhattacharya has been described as warm and intellectually curious, and supportive of their pursuits. It wasn’t until the Covid pandemic that Bhattacharya gained national prominence and attracted controversy. During the pandemic, Dr. Bhattacharya called for “an absolute revamping of the scientific community,” and has promised to “reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again.”

In October 2020, along with two fellow academics, he co-wrote the Great Barrington Declaration. The declaration called on public health officials to roll back Covid lockdowns. The proposal advocated for “herd immunity” as the most effective way for handling the pandemic and advocated for a new approach that would “allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally and build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk.” The declaration sparked an intense negative reaction from the public health establishment.

Since the pandemic, Dr. Bhattacharya has often found himself in conflict with many of the organization’s leaders. Following his authoring of the Great Barrington Declaration, he accused the government of working with social media companies to suppress his views, though a recent Supreme Court ruling found that this claim was false. Still, Bhattacharya has argued that his experiences in recent years have taught him that agency officials, notably Dr. Anthony Fauci, have amassed too much power.

He recently told the Washington Post that he would “restructure the NIH to allow there to be many more centers of power, so that you couldn’t have a small number of scientific bureaucrats dominating a field for a very long time.” To do so, he proposed term limits for scientists running various research centers and shrinking the number of institutes from 27 to 15. He also has said that one of his main goals would be working to rebuild public trust in the American public health establishment, which he has lost “almost all confidence in.”

Other potential priorities floated by Bhattacharya include reducing the amount of NIH grant money that pays for publication in journals, funding studies to replicate the work of scientists in order to root out fraud and encouraging a more open discussion of scientific ideas by publishing studies alongside comments by named reviewers.

Bhattacharya will need to be confirmed by the Senate before officially taking the post.

Debate Opens on NDAA

Posted on December 11, 2024

This week, the House officially voted to open debate on the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The NDAA, passed annually by Congress for the past 60 years, provides authorization of appropriations for the Department of Defense, the nuclear weapons program under the Department of Energy, and other defense-related activities. While the NDAA does not actually appropriate any money, it provides Congressional authority and guidance for the various agencies including policy initiatives and how funding should be used, thus playing a crucial role in setting defense priorities and making organizational changes to military agencies.

The bill authorizes $896 billion in spending, including a 14.5 percent pay raise for junior enlisted troops.

While typically one of the more bipartisan bills, this year’s NDAA includes a controversial provision that led to Democratic opposition in the vote to open debate. The compromise version of the bill, which was introduced on Sunday, includes a measure that would prohibit Tricare from covering gender dysphoria treatments “that could result in sterilization” for children under 18. The provision is based on an amendment added by Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) to the Senate version of the bill.

Many Democrats, including the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), have voiced their concerns about the inclusion of this amendment, casting doubt on its ability to pass with a razor-thin Republican majority in the House. Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) said on the House floor that “military families deserve healthcare that they need, and this included gender-affirming care options for their children.”

Democrats have asserted that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) included the measure in order to appease his right flank ahead of January’s Speaker election. In a statement, Johnson defended the move, asserting that the legislation “included House-passed provisions to restore our focus on military lethality and to end the radical woke ideology being imposed on our military by permanently banning transgender medical treatment for minors and countering antisemitism.”

A number of other controversial proposals were not included in the final bill, including Section 220 the “Prohibition on Award of Research or Development Contracts or Grants to Educational Institutions that Have Violated Certain Civil Rights.” Section 220 was opposed by most higher education institutions as well as by the Department of Defense.

With the bill now coming to a vote this week, many Democrats will be faced with a difficult decision. While gender-affirming care is a red-line for many Democrats, others will find it difficult to oppose a massive defense bill that includes many bipartisan provisions.

If the NDAA passes in the House, it will head to the Senate to be voted on next week.

Congress Debates Another CR

Posted on November 20, 2024

The Continuing Resolution (CR) that Congress passed in late September will fund the government through December 20^th. With that deadline now looming, lawmakers will have to decide whether to pursue another stop-gap measure, and push back the final approval of FY 2025, or attempt to pass an omnibus spending bill to fund the government through the rest of the fiscal year.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has indicated that he would prefer to pass another CR, likely funding the government through March of 2025. This would allow Republicans to exert greater control over the funding process, as they will hold majorities in both chambers in the 119^th Congress. This move would have the added benefit of preventing the Speaker from having to strike a large budget deal with a Democratically -controlled Senate and the Biden Administration—a move likely to be unpopular with his conservative base—before the Speaker election in January. Johnson is expected to run again for Speaker in the 119^th Congress.

Other lawmakers, however, have appeared reluctant to pass yet another CR. Top appropriators in the House and the Senate have voiced support for working to pass full FY 2025 spending bills before the end of the lame-duck session. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), who will chair the Senate Appropriations Committee come January, has said that it is “very much in the interest of the new administration” to resolve the budget now, thus avoiding a budget fight in the first 100 days of the new Trump Administration.

Defense hawks and Pentagon officials have also vocally opposed a CR, arguing that maintaining the current funding levels interferes with their ability to run programs effectively. Senator Rodger Wicker (R-MS), who will chair the Senate Armed Services Committee next year, has said that Congress needs to stop passing short-term measures “at all costs.”

Republican leadership have indicated that the preference of President-elect Trump will factor heavily into their decision, though they have not spoken publicly about their conversations with him. Time is running out to begin discussions of omnibus bills, making a CR more likely. If Congress indeed passes another CR, it moves all FY 2025 decisions into the third quarter of the fiscal year at the earliest, which will put pressure on agencies to execute decisions and spend final funding.

Trump Taps Linda McMahon to lead Education Department

Posted on November 20, 2024

On Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump tapped Linda McMahon, a longtime ally and co-chair of his transition team, to lead the Department of Education. McMahon served as head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term.

McMahon’s relationship with the President-elect spans decades, beginning when she and her husband founded World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE. After stepping down from her role as chief executive of WWE, McMahon was appointed to the Connecticut State Board of Education, a position she held for one year before launching two unsuccessful campaigns to represent Connecticut in the Senate.

Following her Senate bids, McMahon became a prominent Republican donor and vocal supporter of then-candidate Trump. After his victory in the 2016 election, McMahon was chosen to lead the Small Business Administration. The choice was praised by Senators Blumenthal and Murphy, the two Democrats who defeated her in her Senate campaigns. Blumenthal praised her as “a person of serious accomplishment and ability,” with Murphy calling McMahon a “talented and experienced businessperson.” McMahon resigned from her post without controversy in 2019 and was praised by Trump as “one of our all-time favorites” and a “superstar.”

McMahon stayed close to Trump following her departure from the administration, chairing America First Action, a super PAC that backed Trump’s 2020 presidential run. Following his loss in the 2020 election, she helped to start the America First Policy Institute, a conservative policy group advocating for Trump’s agenda and preparing for a second term. McMahon has been serving as the co-chair of Trump’s transition team with Howard Lutnick, a Wall Street executive who was recently tapped to lead the Commerce Department.

President-elect Trump has repeatedly called for the dissolution of the Department of Education, and McMahon will now lead the agency. In a statement, Trump said that as Secretary of Education, “Linda will fight tirelessly to expand ‘Choice’ to every State in America, and empower parents to make the best Education decisions for their families.”

The America First Policy Institute has advocated for the elimination of degree requirements for public sector careers, the abolishment of DEI initiatives at state universities, and the reversal of President Biden’s student debt relief plan.

While serving on the Connecticut State Board of Education, McMahon told lawmakers that she had initially planned to become a teacher and had a lifelong interest in education. Additionally, she spent many years as a trustee for Sacred Heart University in Connecticut

Trump Administration Higher Ed Plans

Posted on November 14, 2024

As of late Wednesday night, Republicans have officially maintained a majority in the House. Republicans will maintain control over House and gain the White House and Senate.

On the campaign trail higher education had considerable focus. President-elect Trump has suggested plans to eliminate the Department of Education. In his previous term, Trump proposed merging the Departments of Education and Labor, but Congress ultimately did not enact the idea.

Echoing the House Republican’s efforts over the last year, Trump’s plans to curb woke ideology in higher education will likely remain a top priority for the Administration. While Trump is limited in his ability to immediately cut off funds to universities, there are a number of other avenues the President may use to push back against DEI initiatives and other programs that he has deemed Marxist and leftist.

Trump has suggested using the military to crackdown on student protests on campuses and using civil-rights laws to challenge the teaching of critical race theory. Another tool that the Trump Administration has said they will consider using is the accreditation system. Many are predicting he may shift some of the responsibilities of accreditors to the Department of Education, where he could exert more influence.

Other plans floated by the incoming Trump Administration include increasing the tax on university endowments, ending President Biden’s student-debt forgiveness program, and using Title IX to ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.