President Donald Trump and his advisor Elon Musk are looking to cut billions in federal funding to research organizations across the country. The issue came up during a feisty debate in the Virginia House of Delegates Wednesday.
Virginia Beach Democratic Delegate Michael Feggans opened Wednesday’s floor session with a call for help in the face of federal funding cuts to the National Institute of Health.
“Millions will lose access to lifesaving treatments; critical disease research will stall and families battling rare illness will be left without hope," Feggans said. "All the while, medical professionals across Virginia will lose their jobs due to reckless federal cuts.”
According to United for Medical Research, a group that advocates for research institutions, Virginia receives over $650 million a year in federal grant funding from NIH. That employs over 7,500 people and creates over $1.7 billion in economic activity.
And in a recent statement Virginia Tech President Tim Sands warned about the impact to health and biomedical research.
But Roanoke Republican Delegate Joe McNamara said Trump’s plan involves only making cuts to indirect costs.
“We are with the researchers, we are with the people with rare disease, we are not for the overhead and the reckless spending that’s become a custom in our government practices,” McNamara said, noting Trump only seeks to cut 15% of overhead.
But Fairfax Democratic Delegate Marcus Simon said if the cuts were legal the coalition of Democratic-led states who sued over them wouldn’t have gotten their funding restored through a judge’s order.
Simon dinged Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares for not joining the suit.
“He didn’t even have to do any work, do any research, he didn’t have to write the briefs. Cause everybody who joined the suit won," Simon said. "And those states are getting hundreds of millions of dollars that Virginia is losing out on.”
Requests to the AG’s office for comment were not returned.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
