The House Appropriations Committee voted 31 to 25 along party lines Wednesday, July 10, to advance its 2025 funding bill for the Department of Health and Human Services that would cut the agency’s funding by $7.5 billion, including a reduction of $18.34 million in funding for nursing education programs under Title VIII of the Public Health Service Act and eliminating the Nursing Workforce Diversity Program. The Republican majority’s news release on the measure is here. The bill would also reorganize the National Institutes of Health, consolidating its 27 centers, including the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), into 15 institutes and eliminating NINR’s dedicated line-item funding. The bill advanced after a lengthy committee markup that rejected amendments to eliminate the provisions reorganizing the NIH, prohibiting funding for gender-affirming care and diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and cutting some programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including for firearms prevention research.

Republican leaders hope to bring the Labor-HHS-Education spending bill to the House floor before Congress adjourns for the month-long August recess. Meanwhile, Senate appropriators have begun marking up their versions of the 12 annual spending bills, although they have not yet released their version of the Labor-HHS-Education funding measure. With the September 30 end of the 2024 fiscal year approaching, lawmakers are expected to pass a short-term extension of current funding when they reconvene after Labor Day and negotiate a final agreement on fiscal 2025 spending in a post-election lame duck session in November.