WASHINGTON — The Federal Emergency Management Agency could look significantly different by next year’s hurricane season, with state and local governments shouldering more of the responsibility for natural disaster response and recovery.

Members of both political parties have long criticized FEMA, but a bipartisan bill moving along in Congress combined with President Donald Trump’s disdain for the agency may provide momentum for a big shift in emergency management.

Trump has said repeatedly he doesn’t support FEMA’s current structure and wants to see a special review council he put together propose a complete overhaul of the agency, possibly eliminating it entirely. That’s provoked deep concern among some local and state officials who don’t see how they would have the funding or background to handle a sudden natural disaster.

“We want to wean off of FEMA and we want to bring it down to the state level,” Trump said in June. “We’re moving it back to the states so the governors can handle it. That’s why they’re governors. Now, if they can’t handle it, they shouldn’t be governor.”

Trump’s FEMA Review Council, a 12-member board led by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has until mid-November to write a report detailing its recommendations for the president.

But, as Noem has noted several times during the group’s two public meetings, Congress holds authority over FEMA and would need to sign off on any major changes.

Lawmakers, some of whom have spent years working on federal emergency management issues, aren’t waiting for the review council’s report to get started.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves, R-Mo., ranking member Rick Larsen, D-Wash., Florida Republican Rep. Daniel Webster and Arizona Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton released their bill in late July, before the review council held its second meeting. It does not aim to eliminate FEMA.

“FEMA is in need of serious reform, and the goal of the FEMA Act of 2025 is to fix it,” Graves wrote in a statement. “This bill does more than any recent reforms to cut through the bureaucracy, streamline programs, provide flexibility, and return FEMA to its core purpose of empowering the states to lead and coordinating the federal response when it’s needed.”

Separately, a U.S. House spending committee is recommending a substantial boost in FEMA funding for the next fiscal year.

Make FEMA a Cabinet-level agency?

Stanton said during an interview with States Newsroom on Wednesday the Transportation Committee’s bill “recognizes the challenges we have learned from past disasters; that sometimes the rules and regulations in place make it very difficult for victims of natural disasters to get the help that they need, whether it be housing or even financial assistance.”

The legislation, he said, focuses on four broad improvements:

• Making FEMA a Cabinet-level agency instead of housing it within the Department of Homeland Security;
• Emphasizing mitigation projects that lessen the impact of natural disasters;
• Streamlining processes that have become too complex over the years; and
• Adding flexibility so states can choose the type of housing or other support that best helps their residents following a natural disaster.

Stanton does not support Trump’s inclination to eliminate FEMA, arguing the federal government should help when local and state governments are overwhelmed by the scale of a natural disaster.

“That’s the whole point of it, that Americans help our fellow Americans at their point of greatest need,” he said.

But Stanton added he’s willing to read through the FEMA Review Council’s report once it’s released and work with its members to improve the agency.

“I’m open-minded,” Stanton said. “If they have good ideas that actually will strengthen FEMA, I’m all ears.”

The bill, while a sign of bipartisan progress in an increasingly polarized Congress, still has several steps to go before reaching Trump’s desk. To gain his signature, lawmakers may need to blend in some of the review council’s recommendations later this year.

A handful of outside groups, including the National Emergency Management Association, sent the committee a letter applauding the bipartisan group for its work so far but hinting they expect changes in the coming months.

“We recognize and appreciate that the legislation is part of an ongoing effort to modernize FEMA and ensure its programs reflect current and emerging challenges,” the four organizations wrote. “In that spirit, we also await the work of the FEMA Review Council and understand that its recommendations may inform refinements to the legislation.”

‘We’re going to have to turn to our own resources’

The review council’s two public meetings so far haven’t included much debate. The members have mostly shared general statements about grievances with FEMA and issued some warnings for state governments that rely heavily on the federal government.

Phil Bryant, former Republican governor of Mississippi, said that states should prepare to begin spending much more on natural disasters.

“We’re going to have to turn to our own resources,” Bryant said. “States are going to have to develop that emergency response fund, take some of their rainy day funds or funds that they may want to use for musical events and put it into disaster recovery.”

Larger states or those with strong economies may be able to absorb some of the cost that the federal government has carried for years, but other members of the council have cautioned their colleagues against going too far.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said the committee will need to clearly explain what costs state and local governments will be responsible for and which will be covered by the federal government.

He also highlighted the challenges of completely reshaping FEMA while it’s in the middle of responding to natural disasters ranging from hurricanes to wildfires to tornadoes.

“We’re going to be changing the tires on this car while this car is barreling 100 miles an hour,” Youngkin said.

Jane Castor, mayor of Tampa, Florida, signaled the panel’s recommendations should take into consideration that many small or rural areas won’t be able to raise the amount of funds they’ve received from FEMA.

“The locals should be prepared to respond to these incidents in the immediate aftermath,” Castor said. “But as was stated before, there are some — London, Kentucky, and Asheville, North Carolina — (where) this is probably the first time that they’ve probably experienced anything like this. And so we have to be there to help them through the worst of their time.”

Noem has been blunt in her assessment of FEMA, calling the agency “disastrous” and “incompetent.”

She’s also been clear that Trump doesn’t expect incremental changes but an entirely new approach to how the federal government responds to natural disasters.

“The president’s vision is that FEMA would not be in the long-term recovery model,” Noem said. “He wants the state and local governments and emergency management directors to lead response immediately when something happens in a state or jurisdiction and for us to be in a supporting role; a financial role that would be there much in a state block grant model.”

A wary eye on Trump panel

Local and state officials throughout the country are keeping a close eye on the Trump administration’s review council, wary of the implications a loss in federal disaster response would have on local and state governments.

Houston, Texas, Controller Chris Hollins said on a call with reporters in August the city has typically put away between $25 million and $30 million for natural disasters with the expectation that FEMA would help with additional costs.

After Trump proposed eliminating FEMA, Hollins began encouraging city leaders “to take a broader look at what’s going to be necessary to be self-reliant. But that’s an incredibly tall task.”

“If we’re all on our own, it’s going to put our individual finances in an extreme state of turmoil, because we’re either going to have to tax our citizens and our residents at extremely high rates to have enough money to be prepared, or we’re going to intentionally roll the dice and run the risk of being unprepared when these moments come,” Hollins said. “And you know, both of those are unacceptable predicaments.”

Minnesota Auditor Julie Blaha said on the same call that some communities will need years or even decades to build up the type of reserve needed to cover just one major natural disaster.

“In a small town it’s going to be pretty hard to put away millions of dollars, and by the time you can get a reserve of millions of dollars, you are likely to have another disaster,” Blaha said. “The only way to respond to that, you have to go into debt, and you have again increased costs.”

Two committees and a funding boost

Congress has a two-track system for determining the size and scope of federal departments like FEMA — authorizing committees, which set policy and generally determine each agency’s mission, and the appropriations committees that provide funding through annual bills.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s bipartisan bill represents a significant step on the authorizing side. But the legislation still has to make it through committee debate, the House floor and the Senate before it could reach Trump’s desk.

Separately, the House Appropriations Committee released a partisan bill earlier this summer that would provide a robust $31.8 billion for FEMA during the next fiscal year, $4.5 billion higher than the agency’s current spending level.

During debate on the legislation, Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz proposed an amendment that would have blocked any federal funding from being used to eliminate FEMA.

“Yes, FEMA needs fixes but FEMA helps all of our communities and we can make it better and should be making it better without killing it,” Wasserman Schultz said. “The states cannot handle the responsibilities of FEMA in the aftermath of a storm on their own. That is simply not possible.”

Republicans opposed the amendment, arguing the spending panel shouldn’t do anything that would tie the hands of the review council, the authorizing committees, or Trump.

Oklahoma Republican Rep. Stephanie Bice sharply criticized FEMA during debate, saying the agency “isn’t working anymore” and has “become bloated.”

But Bice also made the point that federal funding is necessary, saying she was trying to address issues within her district “where FEMA hasn’t paid for disaster debris removal for two years.”

“These communities cannot afford the huge costs of debris removal for two years or more when FEMA doesn’t pay them, reimburse them for the services that they have provided,” Bice said. “This can’t continue.”

Dems say Congress in charge

Democrats on the committee, including Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, urged their GOP colleagues to support the amendment, pressing for any changes to FEMA to be made solely by Congress.

“If FEMA needs reforming, and I may certainly agree with that, we are the reformers,” Hoyer said.

North Carolina Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards, who represents western sections of the state devastated by Hurricane Helene, said he opposed the amendment because he wanted to see a complete overhaul of FEMA — though he appeared to back the idea that lawmakers should decide what changes and when.

“There are few people in this room that have more up close and personal interaction with FEMA over the last eight months than I,” Edwards said. “Up until Sept. 27, FEMA was nothing more than a line item on a budget for me. Since Sept. 27, I’ve very much been getting an education.

“I can tell you that FEMA needs major reform and Congress is best suited to do that.”

This story was published in partnership with the States Newsroom collaborative. Read the full story and original headline here.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s request to claw back $9.4 billion in previously approved spending on foreign aid and public media ran into significant opposition Wednesday, potentially dooming its path forward in the Senate.

Numerous GOP lawmakers on the Appropriations Committee, including Chairwoman Susan Collins, expressed concern at how the proposed rescissions would affect American “soft power” as well as local radio and television stations that rely on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — many in rural America.

Collins (R-ME) highlighted opposition to cutting already approved funding for CPB, which goes toward National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting Service and hundreds of local stations outside the nation’s larger metropolitan areas.

“The vast majority of this funding, more than 70%, actually flows to local television and radio stations,” Collins said. “In Maine this funding supports everything from emergency communications in rural areas to coverage of high school basketball championships and a locally produced high school quiz show. Nationally produced television programs such as ‘Antiques Roadshow,’ ‘Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,’ are also enjoyed by many throughout our country.”

Collins said she understands objections to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting providing funding to national NPR operations, given what she called its “discernibly partisan bent.”

“There are, however, more targeted approaches to addressing that bias at NPR than rescinding all of the funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” Collins said.

Effect on Alaska

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski appeared to signal she also opposes cancelling funding that Congress previously approved for public media and told White House budget director Russ Vought that she wanted him to understand the ramifications on her home state.

“I hope you feel the urgency that I’m trying to express on behalf of people in rural Alaska, and I think in many parts of rural America, where this is their lifeline, this is where they get the updates on that landslide, this is where they get the updates on the wildfires that are coming their way,” Murkowski said.

“And so how they will be able to not only get the emergency alerts that they need, but also the weather reporting to make sure that fishermen … can go out safely. So that these communities can be connected when a deadly landslide has come through,” she said.

Rural radio in South Dakota, Nebraska

South Dakota GOP Sen. Mike Rounds pressed Vought to ensure uninterrupted federal funding to local radio stations in rural areas of his home state, even if Congress rescinds the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s appropriation.

“First of all, we have Native American radio stations in South Dakota. They get their funding through NPR – 90 some percent of what they use. They will not continue to exist if we don’t find a way to take care of their needs,” Rounds said. “It’s not a large amount of money, but would you be willing to work with us to try and find a way for these places where, literally, they’re not political in nature?

“These are the folks that put out the emergency notifications. They talk about community events and so forth. But they’re in very, very rural areas where there simply isn’t an economy to support buying advertising on these stations.”

Vought appeared to agree to work with Rounds, before saying that if Congress approves the rescissions request for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the administration wouldn’t pull back funding until the next fiscal year, which starts on Oct. 1.

Vought also pledged to work with Nebraska Republican Sen. Deb Fischer to ensure people in rural areas will have a way to learn about emergency alerts if the rescissions request is approved.

“I am very concerned also about the emergency alerts that come to many places in Nebraska only through that rural radio,” Fischer said. “We’re a state of vastness, very sparsely populated areas that don’t receive cell service in many cases. It’s difficult even with landlines in many areas of my state.”

Reductions to AIDS relief

Chairwoman Collins also said during the nearly three-hour hearing that cutting funding on certain global health programs, including the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, “would be extraordinarily ill-advised and short-sighted.”

“PEPFAR has saved more than 26 million lives and enabled 7.8 million babies to be born HIV-free to mothers living with HIV,” Collins said. “This program remains a bipartisan priority of Congress. After years of commitment and stable investment the finish line is in sight. The United States has the tools to fulfill PEPFAR’s mission and get the job done while transitioning HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention to country ownership by the year 2030.”

Collins argued that the Trump administration is unlikely to spend foreign aid dollars on the same “questionable projects” that were part of the Biden administration.

“Unless the current administration plans to continue these controversial projects that it has identified — which I very much doubt — those projects alone cannot be used to justify the proposed rescissions,” Collins said.

Just before Vought began giving his opening statement to the committee, a group of protesters in the room stood up and began to yell in an attempt to preserve PEPFAR funding. They were escorted out by U.S. Capitol Police.

Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, chairman of the Defense spending subcommittee and former majority leader, appeared to reject some of the proposed foreign aid cuts, arguing they eroded American influence around the world.

“There’s plenty of absolute nonsense masquerading with American aid that shouldn’t receive another bit of taxpayer funding. But the administration’s attempt to root it out has been unnecessarily chaotic,” McConnell said.

“In critical corners of the globe, instead of creating efficiencies, you’ve created vacuums for adversaries like China to fill. Responsible investments in soft power prevent conflict, preserve American influence and save countless lives at the same time. So if we’re concerned about spending, and we should be, it’s important to remember what wars cost.”

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, however, announced that he will vote for the rescissions package, arguing that some ways the Biden administration spent funds in the PEPFAR account deserved rebuke.

“No more preaching to me. I’m going to vote for this package. And do you know why I’m going to vote for this package? Just as a statement that PEPFAR is important but it’s not beyond scrutiny,” Graham said. “That how you run the government has consequences. Don’t lecture me about being mean or cruel.”

How rescissions work

The Trump administration sent Congress the $9.4 billion rescissions request in early June, allowing the White House budget office to legally freeze funding for the various programs included in the proposal for 45 days while lawmakers decide whether to approve or reject it.

The request called on lawmakers to zero out funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting during the next two fiscal years, a total of $1.1 billion in previously approved spending.

It proposed more than $8 billion in cuts to numerous foreign aid accounts run by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, including health programs, initiatives that promote democracy, economic development, peacekeeping activities and refugee assistance.

One of the rescissions proposed lawmakers claw back $500 million of the $4 billion that Congress previously approved for “activities related to child and maternal health, HIV/ AIDS, and infectious diseases.

“This proposal would not reduce treatment but would eliminate programs that are antithetical to American interests and worsen the lives of women and children, like ‘family planning’ and ‘reproductive health,’ LGBTQI+ activities, and ‘equity’ programs.”

The House voted mostly along party lines in June to approve the request in full, sending it to the Senate, where it has been on the sidelines for weeks as Republicans instead work toward an agreement on the party’s “big, beautiful bill.”

The rescissions bill isn’t subject to the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster, so it only needs the support of 50 Republicans and Vice President JD Vance’s tie-breaking vote to become law. That, however, must happen before the 45-day clock runs out on July 18.

If Senate leaders do not schedule a floor vote, or that vote does not get the necessary support, the Trump administration would have to spend the funding as previously planned. And the White House budget office would be blocked from sending up a rescissions request for the same accounts for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s time in office.

Senate floor consideration also comes with unlimited amendment debate, giving senators from both parties the chance to call for votes on whether to keep or eliminate each proposed rescission.

Any changes to the bill would require it to go back across the Capitol for a final vote in the House before the deadline.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republican leaders expressed confidence Tuesday they’ll be able to tamp down opposition to various elements of the party’s “big, beautiful bill” in time to approve the measure before the Fourth of July, though they acknowledged there’s considerable work left to do.

GOP senators from across the political spectrum have debated the broad strokes of the tax and spending cut legislation for weeks, but raised fresh concerns after the influential Finance Committee released its portion of the package, which addresses taxes and Medicaid. Some GOP senators objected to a change in Medicaid policy they said could harm rural hospitals.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said during a press conference that reducing the Medicaid provider tax rate that states can charge from the current 6% to 3.5% by 2031 represented “important reforms.”

“We think they rebalance the program in a way that provides the right incentives to cover the people who are supposed to be covered by Medicaid,” Thune said. “But we continue to hear from our members specifically on components or pieces of the bill that they would like to see modified or changed or have concerns about. And we’re working through that.”

While the complex provision is deep in the weeds of Medicaid policy, several GOP senators expressed concern during interviews Tuesday that changing the provider tax rate in states that expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act would be a problem for rural hospitals.

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said he opposes that provision and wants to see GOP leaders put back in the House language that would freeze the Medicaid provider tax rate at 6%.

“We have to do something,” Hawley said. “If we pass this as it is, there’s going to be a lot of rural hospitals in Missouri that close. So that’s a big problem.”

West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice said he had “all kinds of concerns” about provisions in the Finance Committee’s portion of the “big, beautiful bill,” which the panel released Monday.

“The House side on the provider tax and everything said, freeze it,” Justice said. “Now there’s a whole lot (of) different gyrations going on with that and everything. And there’s other things that we just need to — just give us some time. We need to work our way through it.”

Justice said he didn’t plan to be a “rubber stamp” on anything and appeared to discourage GOP leaders from bringing the package to the floor next week ahead of their self-imposed Fourth of July deadline.

“I would love to get it done, like the president wants to get it done, by the Fourth of July. I would love for us to be able to do that and everything,” Justice said. “But I think, way more importantly than anything, we got to get it right.”

Other Medicaid issues

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski declined to weigh in on the changes to the Medicaid provider tax rate since her state doesn’t use it the way many others do.

“I don’t have a dog in that fight, because we don’t have provider taxes in Alaska,” Murkowski said. “We’re the only state that’s actually maybe playing by the rules.”

But Murkowski told reporters she does have issues with other ways the legislation would change Medicaid, the state-federal health program for lower income people, and expects the bill will undergo revisions before a final floor vote.

“I don’t think it’s going to stay in this form, let’s just put it that way,” Murkowski said.

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson said he’d vote against the package if leaders bring it to the floor next week as planned and said he expects that if they rush floor consideration, the entire bill will fail to pass.

“I hope not because my guess is it’ll fail and I don’t want to see it fail. I want this thing to succeed,” Johnson said. “Again, the ball has been in the Senate court for two weeks — two weeks. But now we’re seeing language. Now we’re finally seriously considering some of these ideas, let’s have time to seriously consider it and hopefully get them incorporated in the bill.”

The House voted mostly along party lines to approve its version of the package in late May, but Senate Republicans have been reworking the bill in the weeks since.

Among the changes in the Senate, Republicans plan to raise the country’s debt limit by $5 trillion, a full $1 trillion more than House GOP lawmakers proposed in their version.

Possible recess delay

Arkansas Sen. John Boozman said that if the Senate doesn’t vote to approve the package the week of June 23, they’ll likely stay in town the following week to debate the bill, instead of heading home for the Fourth of July week break.

But he cautioned that “the longer it hangs out, the more difficult it is” to pass.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley declined to answer questions about whether he supports or wants to change his chamber’s newly unveiled Medicaid provisions.

“Ask me that question in a couple days because there’s still discussion going on about it,” he said.

Sen. James Lankford praised aspects of the bill, including, “long-term tax policy that’s actually permanent,” which he said is “important for individuals and for small businesses.”

“We’re doing the full expensing, making that permanent — that doesn’t change a dollar as far as the income coming into the Treasury, but very significant for our economy,” the Oklahoma Republican said.

Lankford said he also likes “the R&D tax credit piece to make sure we’re competing with China on it,” “modernization of the air traffic control system,” as well as “some dollars that are going to border security, which has been very important to me, which they have been asking for for a long time and trying to get into structural things to the border that are needed there.”

Members of Congress on edge after assassination of Minnesota state legislator

by Jennifer Shutt, Minnesota Reformer
June 16, 2025

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate will gather behind closed doors Tuesday to hear from federal law enforcement officials about protection for lawmakers and the safety of their families, just days after a gunman said to be posing as a police officer targeted state lawmakers in Minnesota.

The briefing from U.S. Capitol Police and the Senate Sergeant at Arms follows years of increased funding for both entities as threats and attempted assassinations against members of Congress have become part of the job.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, of New York, said Monday on the floor that the suspected shooter had a list of more than 70 public officials he wanted to target, including several members of the Senate.

“My highest priority right now is working with the Senate leadership on both sides, the Senate Sergeant at Arms and Capitol Police, to ensure everyone’s safety,” Schumer said. “This weekend I asked Capitol Police and the Sergeant at Arms to increase security for members, including Sen. (Alex) Padilla and the Minnesota senators.”

California Sen. Padilla moved to the forefront of the public debate about immigration and deportations last week when he was forcibly removed from a press conference after trying to ask Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question while she was still speaking.

Schumer said the briefing would be an opportunity for USCP and the SAA to “convey what they’re doing for members to keep them safe.”

He urged senators to “come together” to oppose political violence in all forms, before criticizing Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee for social media posts. Lee made two posts that drew condemnation.

“I was deeply disappointed and sickened to see a member of this chamber use the tragedy in Minnesota to take cheap political shots at the other side on social media and risk escalating a perilous moment,” Schumer said. “What the senior senator from Utah posted after the shooting was reckless and beneath the dignity of his office.

“For a senator to fan the flames of division with falsities while the killer was still on the loose is deeply irresponsible. He should take down his post immediately and apologize to the families of the victims.”

On another social media account, Lee wrote, “These hateful attacks have no place in Utah, Minnesota, or anywhere in America.”

Suspect faces state and federal charges

Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Sunday during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the attack on the two state lawmakers and their spouses was clearly motivated by politics.

Klobuchar said she has received additional security and that she was concerned about the possibility of more attacks against lawmakers.

“I have had threats before, as several of our colleagues have had,” Klobuchar said. “And I think one of the things is, we don’t talk about this stuff much because you don’t want to see copycats that copy exactly what they’ve done.”

The suspected gunman, who was arrested Sunday following a manhunt, has been charged by both state and federal prosecutors with murdering state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, and attempting to kill state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife.

The suspect went to the homes of at least two other state lawmakers and had a list of Democratic lawmakers’ home addresses as well as abortion providers, according to police.

Lawmakers disclose they were on list of targets

The U.S. House won’t receive a security briefing this week since its members are out of session on a district work period, typically a time when lawmakers are back in their communities for town halls and other public events, though the shooting has led some members to change their schedules.

Michigan Democratic Rep. Hillary Scholten announced Monday she would postpone her town hall in Muskegon, writing in a statement she didn’t want to “divert additional law enforcement resources away from protecting the broader public at this time.”

“Nothing matters more to me than the safety and well-being of the people I serve,” Scholten wrote. “After being made aware that my name was on a list connected to the recent tragic shooting in Minnesota, my office has made the difficult decision to postpone our planned town hall in Muskegon.”

Scholten added she hoped to “reschedule this event as soon as possible.”

Ohio Democratic Rep. Greg Landsman released a statement on Monday, announcing that USCP bolstered his security after his name was found among the suspected Minnesota shooter’s possessions.

“On Sunday morning, Capitol Police contacted my office to inform me that the FBI had found my name among the evidence collected during the search for a suspect in Minnesota — who is accused of murdering and seriously injuring lawmakers,” Landsman wrote. “Since the suspect was still at large at that time, we worked very closely with the Cincinnati Police Department to arrange for increased security for my family and me.”

Texas Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar wrote in a statement posted to social media that she was among the people the suspected Minnesota shooter had on his list.

“This was only a day after protestors were shot in Utah, an extremist drove a car into protests in Virginia, credible threats were made against state lawmakers in Austin and a man pointed a gun at protestors here in El Paso,” Escobar wrote.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and New York Democratic Rep. Joseph D. Morelle, ranking member on the Committee on House Administration, wrote to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Monday, urging him to take action to ensure members’ safety.

“While we differ in many areas related to policy and our vision for America’s future, Member safety must be an area of common ground. Representatives from both sides of the aisle have endured assassination attempts that changed their lives and careers forever,” the two wrote. “Too many other patriotic public servants have left Congress because they no longer felt safe carrying out their duty as elected officials. We must act to protect each other and preserve this great American institution.”

Threats on the rise over the years

Members of Congress and their families are no strangers to threats, which have steadily risen for years, attacks and shootings.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was attacked in their family home in San Francisco in October 2022 by a man wielding a hammer, who was searching for Pelosi, a California Democrat.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La, was shot and severely wounded in 2017 when a gunman opened fire at GOP lawmakers practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game. Several others were injured during the shooting.

Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords survived being shot in the head during a constituent meeting in a grocery store parking lot in 2011 when a gunman opened fire, killing six people and injuring a dozen others.

Even President Donald Trump, who has extensive Secret Service protection, was shot in the ear last July while campaigning in Pennsylvania. The gunman in that incident killed local fireman Corey Comperatore and injured two others.

The union representing U.S. Capitol Police warned more than a year ago that the federal law enforcement agency was struggling to keep up amid an increasingly hostile political environment and staffing shortages.

“We’ve never seen a threat environment like this,” union Chairman Gus Papathanasiou wrote in a statement. “Given the profound divisions in this country and this year’s elections, people ask me if I’m concerned and I tell them I am worried — very worried.”

Former USCP Chief Thomas Manger, who retired earlier this year, told lawmakers well before the union’s public statement that he was concerned by how few threats against members of Congress were actually prosecuted successfully.

Few threats led to prosecution

Klobuchar, who was chair of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee at the time of the hearing, said USCP referred 458 threat cases for prosecution during 2021, with 40 of those leading to a court case. That was out of 9,625 total threats.

Just 22 of the 7,501 threats lobbed at members during 2022 led to prosecution, a USCP spokesperson confirmed to States Newsroom at the time.

Threats against lawmakers have continued to increase ever since.

USCP investigated 8,008 “concerning statements and direct threats against the Members of Congress, including their families and staff” in 2023 and 9,474 in 2024, according to data from USCP.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress from both political parties are calling on the Trump administration to unfreeze funding for a grant program that helps local communities better prepare for natural disasters.

The letter from more than 80 lawmakers urges the Federal Emergency Management Agency to begin spending money already approved by Congress for the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program.

“The BRIC program was established by Congress in the 2018 Disaster Recovery Reform Act and signed into law by President (Donald) Trump with bipartisan support,” the two-page letter states. “In the years since, this program has catalyzed community investments in resilient infrastructure, saving federal funds by investing in community preparedness before a disaster strikes.”

The lawmakers wrote that BRIC grant funds go to a variety of projects and that the program has played “an essential role in helping Tribal Nations and rural communities strengthen their defenses against natural disasters and safeguard critical infrastructure.”

“Through BRIC, Tribes and rural communities can access dedicated funding to strengthen community resilience by investing in hazard mitigation projects—such as flood protection, fire prevention, and infrastructure hardening—that are otherwise difficult to finance in rural or remote settings,” the lawmakers wrote.

While the program “has room for improvement,” the lawmakers wrote that FEMA and Congress should work together “to improve the application review and funding distribution process to more effectively reduce the costs disasters pose to our communities, economies, and livelihoods.”

Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen, North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray and Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski led drafting the letter in their chamber.

Reps. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C.; Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas; Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa.; and Ed Case, D-Hawaii, spearheaded efforts in the House.

‘Beyond reckless’

FEMA announced in early April that it would unilaterally cancel all BRIC funding approved from fiscal years 2020 through 2023, calling the program “wasteful and ineffective” in a statement.

“Approximately $882 million of funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will be returned to the U.S. Treasury or reapportioned by Congress in the next fiscal year,” a FEMA spokesperson wrote in the statement. “The 2021 law made $1 billion available for BRIC over five years, $133 million to date has been provided for about 450 applications. FEMA estimates more than $3.6 billion will remain in the Disaster Relief Fund to assist with disaster response and recovery for communities and survivors.”

The National Association of Counties wrote in a post about the cancellation that community leaders may “need to halt work or seek new funding sources” and “delay or scale back infrastructure investments.”

“Without access to BRIC’s federal match, counties may find it more difficult to pursue large-scale mitigation projects,” the NaCo post stated.

Association of State Floodplain Managers Executive Director Chad Berginnis wrote that dismantling the country’s “largest pre-disaster mitigation program is beyond reckless.”

“Cutting funding from projects already underway will leave states and communities scrambling, increasing disaster risk to families and businesses instead of reducing it,” Berginnis wrote. “The impact of this decision will be felt for decades to come.”

U.S. Senate confirms Bisignano to lead Social Security, with all Dems in opposition

by Jennifer Shutt, Daily Montanan
May 6, 2025

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed Frank Bisignano as Social Security commissioner, putting him in charge of a $1.5 trillion entitlement program that’s relied on by tens of millions of Americans.

The 53-47 party-line vote drops a considerable amount of responsibility onto Bisignano, who will not only be tasked with fixing the Social Security Administration’s customer services issues, but ensuring plans to cut its staff by at least 7,000 workers doesn’t hinder the safety net program that helps to keep seniors out of poverty.

Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden said during a floor speech just before the vote that Bisignano should have been disqualified from consideration after he “lied multiple times” during the confirmation process.

Wyden also argued that Bisignano would institute substantial changes at the Social Security Administration, which could negatively affect people who rely on the program.

“Every single member of this body that votes to confirm this nominee is going to own the consequences,” Wyden said. “Mr. Bisignano is unfit to be the steward of Americans’ hard-earned Social Security benefits.”

Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said during a floor speech last week that he was “confident” Bisignano held the “experience needed to lead this important agency.”

“The Social Security Administration needs steady, Senate-confirmed leadership,” Crapo said. “Mr. Bisignano would bring his decades-long focus on customer service and operational excellence to the Social Security Administration.”

Wait times, error rate

Bisignano said during his nearly three-hour confirmation hearing in March that he would make sure beneficiaries could visit an office, use the website, or speak to a real person after calling the 1-800 number.

“On the phone, I’m committed to reducing wait times and providing beneficiaries with a better experience; waiting 20 minutes-plus to get an answer will be of yesteryear,” Bisignano said at the time. “I also believe we can significantly improve the length of the disability claim process.”

Bisignano told lawmakers during the hearing he would reduce the 1% error rate in payments, which he said was “five decimal places too high.”

Whistleblower allegations

The Senate Finance Committee voted along party lines in April to send Bisignano’s nomination to the floor, though Chairman Crapo said at the time the panel would look into a whistleblower’s allegations.

“Even though the timing of the anonymous letter suggests a political effort to delay the committee vote on this nominee, my staff have told Sen. Wyden’s staff — and we have discussed this just now — we are open to meeting with the author of the letter and keeping the individual anonymous,” Crapo said. “However, any information provided by the individual must be thoroughly vetted, including allowing the nominee the opportunity to respond.”

Wyden, ranking member on the panel, urged Republicans to delay that committee vote until after the investigation concluded.

“This nominee lied multiple times to every member of this committee, including the bipartisan Finance staff and the nominee’s actions and communications with DOGE remain very much at the heart of my objection here,” Wyden said. “My office received an account from a whistleblower about the ways the nominee was deeply involved in and aware of DOGE’s activities at the agency.”

Crapo said during his floor speech last week that the whistleblower “allegations focused on the frequency and details of communications between the nominee and Social Security Administration officials.”

“Mr. Bisignano addressed these allegations during the hearing and responded in writing as part of the questions for the record,” Crapo added. “He has stated clearly that he does not currently have a role at the Social Security Administration and was not part of the decision-making process led by the Acting Commissioner, Lee Dudek, about Social Security operations, personnel, or management.”

Bisignano, of New Jersey, most recently worked as chairman of the board and chief executive officer at Fiserv, Inc., which “enables money movement for thousands of financial institutions and millions of people and businesses,” according to its website. The company is based in Wisconsin.

He previously worked as co-chief operating officer and chief executive officer of Mortgage Banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com.

U.S. House GOP starts reconciliation work with increase for border security

by Ariana Figueroa and Jennifer Shutt, Kansas Reflector
April 29, 2025

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans on Tuesday kicked off their work to build consensus on “one big, beautiful bill,” to fund President Donald Trump’s priorities, including a major funding boost for immigration enforcement and border security.

After returning from a two-week recess, House lawmakers started debating and amending the various sections of the bill with markups in the Armed Services, Education and Workforce, and Homeland Security committees.

Congressional Republicans are using reconciliation — a special procedure that skirts the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster — to put together one bill to fulfill the White House’s priorities on border security, tax cuts, energy policy and defense.

The Homeland panel’s bill, which would increase funding for border security by $70 billion, aligns with Trump’s second-term agenda, which has centered on an immigration crackdown.

The Homeland Security portion of the reconciliation package recommends $46.5 billion to construct a barrier along U.S. borders and $5 billion for Customs and Border Protection facilities, including $4.1 billion to hire 3,000 Border Patrol agents and 5,000 CBP officers. It would also set aside $2 billion for retention and signing bonuses for CBP staff.

“It is critical that the Republican majority do what the people elected us to do, approve funds for effective border security and enforcement measures,” House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green of Tennessee said.

The bill also includes $2.7 billion in technology surveillance along U.S. borders and roughly $1 billion for inspection technology at ports of entry.

The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said Democrats were unified in their opposition to the proposal. He argued that roughly $70 billion in funding would only aid the Trump administration in its plans of mass deportation and not address border security.

“House Republican leadership is putting lipstick on this pig of a reconciliation package by pretending it’s about border security,” Thompson said.

Votes on all three committees’ bills, and amendments mostly from Democrats raising objections to the package, were expected late Tuesday or after midnight Wednesday. The committees are not expected to adopt any of the Democratic amendments.

Summer floor votes

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Tuesday he expects the House will spend the rest of this week and next week debating the 11 different bills in committee before rolling them all into one reconciliation package.

The full House will debate and vote to approve the legislation before Memorial Day, under the current timeline.

“I don’t know how long the Senate is going to take to do their piece,” Johnson said. “But I was very encouraged after the meeting yesterday, frankly. Leader (John) Thune and Sen. (Mike) Crapo are on point. The Senate Republicans have been working very hard together.”

Thune, of South Dakota, is the Senate majority leader and Crapo, of Idaho, chairs the tax-writing Finance Committee.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the administration would like the package to clear Congress before the Fourth of July, though Johnson said he “hopes” to finalize a deal before that deadline.

Thune said later Tuesday that the reconciliation package’s final look will be decided by what policies have the votes to get through each chamber.

“Ultimately, what gets included in a reconciliation bill will be determined by what there are 218 votes for in the House and 51, or 50, votes for in the United States Senate,” Thune said.

Democrats object to deportations

Democrats on the Homeland Security panel introduced amendments to signal their opposition to the administration’s deportation agenda.

Louisiana Rep. Troy Carter was one of several Democrats to sharply criticize the recent deportation of three U.S. citizen children to Honduras during the Homeland Security Committee’s markup.

He noted that one of the children removed with his mother to Honduras, is a 4-year-old battling Stage 4 cancer.

“This is not border security,” Carter said. “This is state-sanctioned trauma.

Democrats introduced amendments to bar federal funds being used to detain immigrants at a foreign prison, following an agreement between the U.S. and El Salvador to detain more than 300 men in a notorious mega-prison. Experts have raised concerns the agreement could violate a law against funding foreign governments engaged in human rights abuses.

“This is not an idle possibility,” Democratic Rep. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island said.

He pointed out that Trump asked El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele to consider taking “homegrown” criminals, meaning U.S. citizens.

“This is insane,” Magaziner said. “It is outrageous and every American should be terrified by this prospect.”

Several other Democrats introduced amendments related to the Trump administration’s use of the prison in El Salvador.

Boost for Pentagon

The House Armed Services Committee portion of the reconciliation package would bolster defense spending by $150 billion over the next decade.

That funding would be divvied up between numerous national security priorities, including $25 billion for Trump’s goal of having a countrywide missile defense system, similar to Israel’s Iron Dome.

The defense bill would appropriate $34 billion for shipbuilding and the maritime industrial base, $21 billion for munitions purchases, $14 billion for “initiatives to scale production of game changing new technology,” $13 billion for nuclear deterrence and $12 billion to enhance military readiness, according to a GOP summary of that bill.

Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said at the beginning of his committee’s markup that the bill would make a “generational investment in our national security.”

“It is clear we are no longer deterring our adversaries,” Rogers said. “The threats we face today from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea and others, are much more serious and challenging than we have ever faced before.”

Washington Democratic Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member on the panel, said there’s “no question that the Department of Defense has needs and there’s also no question that we as a country face threats.”

But Smith criticized Republicans for moving the defense funding boost within the massive reconciliation package, which will increase the deficit.

“We’re, once again, saying to the American people, ‘This is important but not important enough to actually pay for it.’ So the budget itself is a huge problem,” Smith said. “And you really can’t support the additional $150 billion for defense if you don’t support the overall reconciliation bill because that’s what this is. And the overall reconciliation bill, I firmly believe, is a disaster for this country.”

Smith criticized Republicans for proposing additional dollars for the Pentagon while it is run by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is under investigation for sending information about a bombing campaign in Yemen to a group chat that inadvertently included a journalist and a different group chat that included his wife, brother and others.

“They have not even begun to prove that there is a chance in hell that they will spend this money intelligently, efficiently and effectively,” Smith said. “Secretary Hegseth has proven himself to be completely incapable of doing the job of secretary of Defense.”

Cuts for Pell grants

The Education and Workforce Committee’s markup fell along similar partisan lines, with GOP lawmakers lauding the bill and Democrats rejecting Republicans’ plans seeking to overhaul federal spending.

Chairman Tim Walberg, R-Mich., said the legislation would cut $330 billion in federal spending over the next decade by reshaping federal student loan programs and Pell grants for low-income students, among several other changes.

“Dumping more federal money into a broken system doesn’t mean that system will work,” Walberg said. “In fact, government spending on higher education has reached record highs, yet millions of students benefiting from those funds will ultimately end up with a degree that doesn’t pay off or fail to finish school altogether.”

The GOP bill, he said, would “bring much-needed reform in three key areas: simplified loan repayment, streamlined student loan options, and accountability for students and taxpayers.”

Walberg scolded former President Joe Biden for not working with Congress to overhaul federal grant and loan programs for higher education, saying the former administration “was determined to keep pouring taxpayer funds into the abyss in a futile attempt to keep up with the unacceptable and unaccountable institutional prices.”

Virginia Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking member, said that Congress should look at ways to make college more affordable through reforms, but said the GOP bill “misses the mark.”

“This current reconciliation plan would increase costs for colleges and students. It would limit students access to quality programs, which would then reduce their likelihood of finding a rewarding or successful career,” Scott said. “And then take the so-called savings to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy and the well-connected.”

Republicans “limiting the students’ access to Pell grants and federal loans,” he said, could increase the number of people who have to rely on “predatory, private loans” to pay for college.

“Put bluntly: The Republican plan will limit how much money middle- and low-income students can borrow from the federal government,” Scott said. “As a result, limiting the federal student aid that students can receive means that millions of students will not be able to access federal assistance that they need to complete their degrees. Moreover, this bill will force student borrowers into unaffordable repayment plans.”

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

FDA seeks to phase out 8 common food dyes

by Jennifer Shutt, Kansas Reflector
April 22, 2025

WASHINGTON — Trump administration health officials announced Tuesday they hope to eliminate eight petroleum-based synthetic dyes from the nation’s food supply before the end of next year, though they haven’t received guarantees or written agreement from food companies.

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary detailed efforts to phase out the dyes during a press conference alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the department’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.

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“Let’s be honest, taking petroleum-based food dyes out of the food supply is not a silver bullet that will instantly make America’s children healthy, but it is one important step,” Makary said.

The FDA’s proposal would revoke authorization for Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B while setting up the agency to work “with industry to eliminate” Green No. 3, Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5, Yellow No. 6, Blue No. 1 and Blue No. 2.

FDA will also authorize new, natural food dyes in the months ahead.

Kennedy said the Trump administration has an “understanding,” but not an “agreement” with food companies that use the dyes, before deferring to Makary, who said that “you win more bees with honey than fire.”

“There are a number of tools at our disposal. And so I believe in love, and let’s start in a friendly way and see if we can do this without any statutory or regulatory changes,” Makary said. “But we are exploring every tool in the toolbox to make sure this gets done very quickly. And they want to do it. They want to do it.

“So why go down a complicated road with Congress when they want to do this? They don’t want to deal with the patchwork of 30 different state plans.”

Christopher Gindlesperger, senior vice president of public affairs and communications at the National Confectioners Association, released a written statement that didn’t appear to agree entirely with the FDA’s proposed phase-out, however.

“FDA and regulatory bodies around the world have deemed our products and ingredients safe, and we look forward to working with the Trump Administration and Congress on this issue,” Gindlesperger wrote. “We are in firm agreement that science-based evaluation of food additives will help eliminate consumer confusion and rebuild trust in our national food safety system.”

Removing additives

During the press conference, Makary held up watermelon, beet and carrot juices in clear containers, encouraging food companies to use those as dye, instead of the ones that may be removed from the market.

“We are simply asking American food companies to replace petroleum-based food dyes with natural ingredients for American children, just as they already do for children in other countries,” he said. “American children deserve good health.”

Makary said he believes there are several health conditions associated with petroleum-based synthetic dyes in food, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, cancer, genomic disruption, gastrointestinal issues, and allergic reactions.

Kennedy said his goal as HHS secretary is to remove all additives in food served in schools “that we can legally address.”

The department, Kenedy said, will also work with Congress and President Donald Trump to increase labeling for food ingredients that Kennedy called addictive, including sugar.

“There’s things that we’ll never be able to eliminate, like sugar. And sugar is poison and Americans need to know that,” Kennedy said. “It is poisoning us. Is giving us a diabetes crisis.”

Health effects unclear

Martin Bucknavage, senior food safety extension associate at Penn State University, said during an interview with States Newsroom that petroleum-based synthetic food dyes are derived just to get the color.

“It’s not like it’s just a nasty chemical that they’re putting in there,” he said. “It’s something that’s been taken, it’s been chemically made, modified and then purified, so that it is just that chemical that provides that color. And then those colors have been studied.”

Similar to the complicated nature of nutrition studies — which can have a challenging time separating out a person’s genetics, exercise and environmental factors from one specific part of their diet — research on food dyes hasn’t been conclusive, Bucknavage said.

“In some cases, it does have an impact on hypersensitivity, but not in all cases,” he said. “And not all studies are basically showing the same thing. So there’s a lot of variability that exists out there.

“And I’m not saying, ‘Listen, we shouldn’t go through and study these things more and get better information on them.’ We certainly should. But again, it’s not an easy thing to do. Some of these studies take time and take a lot of money and sometimes the results are kind … more variable in terms of the results.”

States regulating dyes

The FDA’s announcement wasn’t the first time the federal government or state lawmakers have sought to ban food additives or synthetic dyes.

The Biden administration announced in January that the federal government would ban Red No. 3 in food beginning in 2027 and from medicines in 2028. Makary said during the press conference Tuesday the current administration plans to ask companies to phase out that dye sooner.

California lawmakers approved a bill in 2023 that will ban Red No. 3, propylparaben, brominated vegetable oil and potassium bromate from food starting in 2027.

The following year, legislators in the Golden State approved another measure that, starting in 2028, will ban six food dyes — Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3, Red 40, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 — from being sold in schools.

Those two state laws followed the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment releasing a report in 2021 that concluded “scientific literature indicates that synthetic food dyes can impact neurobehavior in some children.”

Virginia lawmakers approved legislation earlier this year that Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed in March to ban some artificial food dyes in public schools, starting in July 2027.

In deeply red West Virginia, Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed a bill a few days later that will prevent seven artificial dyes from being sold in grocery stores starting in 2028 or included in school lunches starting in August.

Arizona and Utah have implemented laws of their own addressing food dyes.

The Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization focused on strengthening health standards, reports that legislators in several states, including Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Washington have introduced bills that could ban certain food dyes or chemicals.

Melanie Benesh, EWG vice president for government affairs, wrote in a statement about the FDA announcement that the federal agency “has known for decades that synthetic food dyes are linked to health problems, particularly in children, but has failed to act.”

“We’re pleased the administration is following the lead of states like California and West Virginia by finally announcing their intent to ban dyes,” Benesh wrote. “We’re grateful that states like California and West Virginia have forced the FDA to make food safety a bigger priority.”

Peter Lurie, president and executive director of the self-described food and health watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest, wrote in a statement released Monday that Americans “don’t need synthetic dyes in the food supply, and no one will be harmed by their absence.”

“The most important thing to know about food dyes is that their only purpose is to make food companies money,” Lurie wrote. “They are purely cosmetic, serving no nutritional function. In other words, food dyes help make ultra-processed foods more attractive, especially to children, often by masking the absence of a colorful ingredient, like fruit.”

Ashley Murray contributed to this report.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

by Jennifer Shutt, Daily Montanan

April 8, 2025

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Capitol Police chief testified Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon people convicted of assaulting police officers on Jan. 6, 2021, had negative repercussions on morale within the department and for police across the country.

“I think there was an impact, not only to the Capitol Police, but an impact nationwide when you see folks that are pardoned — and I’m really referring to the ones that were convicted of assaulting police officers,” J. Thomas Manger said during a hearing on the department’s budget request.

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“I think that’s what bothered most cops and it did certainly have an impact on the USCP,” Manger added. “We’ve got so much change that officers are experiencing over the last four years, so I’m trying to keep them focused on moving forward. But it certainly did have a negative impact. For cops all over this country, you wonder when you put your life on the line every day, and does it matter?”

On Trump’s first day in office, he pardoned nearly 1,500 people who were convicted of crimes related to attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, while members of Congress moved through the process to certify President Joe Biden’s win of the Electoral College vote.

Many of those people went to the Capitol after attending a rally near the White House where Trump repeated false claims about winning the 2020 presidential election, despite numerous failed court cases and no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Manger testified during the House Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee hearing that the department has made numerous improvements since the attacks, but that its nearly $1 billion budget request is necessary to hire more officers and continue updating equipment.

“I recognize that there are other police departments of a similar size whose budget is not as large as ours. But we’re not an ordinary law enforcement agency,” Manger said. “The USCP is unlike any traditional police department. In fact, our mission incorporates elements similar to the FBI, U.S. Secret Service and the federal protective service.”

Manger said that in the four years since the Jan. 6 attack, USCP has made substantial changes to how it operates and that many of its “mission requirements simply did not exist four years ago.”

Last updated 11:50 a.m., Apr. 8, 2025

Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com.

Senate GOP budget resolution sets stage for raising debt limit by as much as $5 trillion

by Jennifer Shutt, Daily Montanan
April 2, 2025

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans released an updated budget resolution Wednesday that sets a May 9 deadline for more than a dozen committees to approve their slice of the massive package that will permanently extend the GOP tax cuts and make significant reductions in spending.

The 70-page budget resolution, however, includes different guidelines for the House and Senate committees, allowing GOP leaders to sidestep their differences on policy for the moment, but not the long haul.

The budget resolution also sets the stage for the House to raise the debt limit by $4 trillion and the Senate to lift it by not more than $5 trillion in the reconciliation package.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote in a statement that final approval of the budget resolution would “unlock the ability for the appropriate Senate committees to fully fund our border needs for four years, provide much-needed financial relief to our military at a time of great danger, make the 2017 tax cuts permanent to energize the economy, and do what has been promised for decades: go through every line item of the budget to cut wasteful and unnecessary spending — hopefully by the trillions.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., released a statement of his own, saying the “parliamentarian has reviewed the Budget Committee’s substitute amendment and deemed it appropriate for consideration under the Budget Act.”

“It is now time for the Senate to move forward with this budget resolution in order to further advance our shared Republican agenda in Congress,” Thune wrote.

The Senate parliamentarian is the nonpartisan scorekeeper who ensures everything included in a reconciliation bill meets the chamber’s strict rules.

Here comes the vote-a-rama

The complicated reconciliation process will allow the GOP to approve its core policy goals without needing support from Democrats in the Senate, where 60 votes are usually needed to advance legislation. Reconciliation does, however, come with several hoops to jump through.

One of those hurdles will come later this week when the Senate endures the dreaded vote-a-rama; a marathon amendment voting session that typically lasts overnight. After that, senators will be able to send the budget resolution to the House for final approval.

The tax-and-spending blueprint released Wednesday will send a dozen House committees instructions on how to draft their pieces of the package, while 10 Senate committees will write bills.

Typically, the committee instructions, which just include a budget target, are similar, if not identical, for the House and Senate. But differences of opinion between Republican leaders about how much to cut federal spending, as well as other disagreements, led to differing instructions.

The House has a significantly higher threshold for cutting government spending than the Senate.

The Agriculture Committee needs to slice at least $230 billion; Education and Workforce must reduce spending by a minimum of $330 billion; Energy and Commerce needs to cut no less than $880 billion; Financial Services must find at least $1 billion in savings; Natural Resources has a minimum of $1 billion; Oversight and Government Reform has a floor of $50 billion; and the Transportation Committee needs to reduce deficits by $10 billion or more.

House committees that can increase the federal deficit include the Armed Services Committee with a cap of $100 billion in new spending, Homeland Security with a $90 billion ceiling for new funding for programs it oversees, Judiciary with a maximum of $110 billion and Ways and Means, which can increase deficits up to $4.5 trillion for tax cuts.

Spending cuts in Senate

Senators set a much lower bar for themselves in terms of spending cuts, though the way the reconciliation instructions are written, as a floor and not a ceiling, will give leeway for those committees to cut much more.

Four Senate committees — Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; Energy and Natural Resources; and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or HELP — must each find at least $1 billion in spending cuts over the 10-year budget window.

Senate committees also got instructions for increasing the deficit, which will allow them to spend up to the dollar amount outlined in the budget resolution. Those committees include Armed Services at $150 billion; Commerce, Science and Transportation with $20 billion; Environment and Public Works at $1 billion; Finance with $1.5 trillion in new deficits, likely for tax cuts; Homeland Security at $175 billion and Judiciary with $175 billion.

Once the House and Senate both vote to adopt the same budget resolution, the committees can formally begin drafting and marking up their bills.

Those bills, according to the instructions, must be sent to the Budget committees before May 9. That panel will then bundle all of the various pieces together into one reconciliation package and send it to the floor.

The House and Senate must vote to approve the same reconciliation package before it can go to President Donald Trump for his signature and become law.

Republicans have a paper-thin majority in the House and will need to ensure that lawmakers from across the party support all of the elements going into the reconciliation package. Even a few defectors in that chamber could block the bill from moving forward.

Senate GOP leaders have a bit more wiggle room, but cannot lose more than three of their members and pass a reconciliation bill.

Last updated 4:07 p.m., Apr. 2, 2025

Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com.

Democrats ask congressional watchdog agency to probe Trump’s funding freezes

by Jennifer Shutt, Daily Montanan
March 31, 2025

WASHINGTON — Top Democrats in Congress are asking the Government Accountability Office to open an investigation into whether the Trump administration violated federal law by freezing funding for several programs.

Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle and Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, ranking members on the House and Senate Budget committees, wrote in a two-page letter sent Monday to the government watchdog organization that certain actions appear to have violated the Impoundment Control Act.

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“Unilaterally impounding funds is illegal, and Donald Trump and Russ Vought are trying to gut the federal government piece by piece,” Merkley wrote in a statement accompanying the letter. “GAO must get to the bottom of this and reiterate to the administration that Congress has the power of the purse, not Trump and Vought.”

The Senate voted along party lines earlier this year to confirm Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget, which has wide-reaching authority over decisions within the executive branch

A Government Accountability Office spokesperson told States Newsroom the agency is working through its process to determine whether it will launch an investigation based on the letter.

GAO, the spokesperson said, also has ongoing work related to the ICA.

OMB authority

Boyle wrote in a statement that the Constitution gives Congress the authority to determine when and where the federal government spends money.

“The administration’s withholding of critical investments harms American communities that rely on these funds for jobs, economic stability, and essential infrastructure,” Boyle wrote. “Robust congressional oversight, alongside litigation, is vital to protecting the interests of the American people.”

The Impoundment Control Act, enacted in the 1970s, bars presidents from not spending the money that Congress has appropriated. Vought has said repeatedly he believes the law is unconstitutional and that presidents have this authority.

Several lawsuits have been filed over the Trump administration opting not to spend federal money, some of which have blocked the actions from taking effect while the cases proceed through the federal courts.

The Boyle-Merkley letter alleges the Trump administration has run afoul of the law on several occasions, including on his first day in office when he ordered a pause on foreign development assistance as well as funding in the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law.

The two ask GAO to also look into the Trump administration’s decision to halt military aid to Ukraine for about a week in March, writing they are “concerned this pause may have been an illegal impoundment with negative foreign policy and national security implications.”

“The Constitution grants the President no unilateral authority to withhold funds from obligation,” Boyle and Merkley wrote in the letter. “Instead, Congress has vested the President with strictly circumscribed authority to impound or withhold budget authority only in limited circumstances as expressly provided in the Impoundment Control Act.

“The executive branch may withhold amounts from obligation only if the President transmits a special message to Congress that includes the amount of budget authority proposed for withholding and the reason for the proposal (2 U.S.C. §§ 683–684).”

What can GAO do?

During the first Trump administration, the GAO found the Office of Management and Budget violated the Impoundment Control Act when it halted assistance to Ukraine.

“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” GAO wrote in the report. “OMB withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). The withholding was not a programmatic delay. Therefore, we conclude that OMB violated the ICA.”

The GAO writes on its website that the ICA “authorizes the head of GAO, known as the Comptroller General, to file a lawsuit if the President illegally impounds funds.”

Comptroller General Gene Dodaro testified before Congress earlier this year that he plans to do just that if the independent agency finds violations of the ICA.

“We’re going to make these decisions as fast as possible,” Dodaro said, according to a news report. “I fully intend to carry out our responsibilities under the Impoundment Control Act expeditiously and thoroughly . . . I’ll do it as quickly as I can, but we need to be careful and thorough, because the next step for us is to go to court ourselves. If we say there’s been impoundment and money isn’t released in a certain period of time, we have to go to court.”

Last updated 2:10 p.m., Mar. 31, 2025

Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com.

by Jennifer Shutt, Daily Montanan

March 26, 2025

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and Congress have until August or September to reach agreement and act on the debt limit, the Congressional Budget Office forecast Wednesday.

Otherwise the United States would default for the first time in history, likely leading to a global financial crisis.

The nonpartisan CBO projection is similar to an estimate published earlier this week by the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank, which expects the X-date will occur between mid-July and early October.

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The previous debt limit suspension expired in January, but the Treasury Department has been able to keep paying all the government’s bills through accounting maneuvers called extraordinary measures. When those run out, the country would hit the X-date and a default would begin.

The four-page CBO report says the default range “is uncertain” because how much money the federal government brings in as well as how much it spends at a given time is difficult to track.

“If the government’s borrowing needs are significantly greater than CBO projects, the Treasury’s resources could be exhausted in late May or sometime in June, before tax payments due in mid-June are received or before additional extraordinary measures become available on June 30,” the report states. “Conversely, if borrowing needs fall short of the amounts in CBO’s projections, the extraordinary measures will permit the Treasury to continue financing government activities longer than expected.”

GOP bill on tap

Republicans in Congress are hoping to approve a massive bill in the months ahead that would extend the 2017 tax law, creating $4.5 trillion in new deficits. The package is also supposed to appropriate hundreds of billions of dollars to the Department of Defense and border security initiatives.

GOP lawmakers hope to pay for some of those increases in the deficit through spending cuts, but are far from agreement on how best to do that.

The debt limit allows the Treasury Department to borrow money to pay all of the country’s bills in full and on time. The federal government must borrow money to pay for spending that Congress has approved that isn’t funded by taxes or other fees.

During the last full fiscal year, that imbalance between revenue and spending, also called the deficit, totalled $1.8 trillion. Over decades, annual deficits have added up to a $36.2 trillion national debt.

Congress failing to raise or suspend the debt limit before the default date would limit the Treasury Department to spending only the cash it had on hand, a scenario with much broader implications than a partial government shutdown.

A default could lead the federal government to delay or simply never make payments on thousands of federal accounts, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, troop pay, federal employee salaries and much more.

The Treasury Department writes on its website that not raising the debt limit by a specific dollar amount or suspending the debt limit through a future date “would have catastrophic economic consequences.”

A Government Accountability Office report lists off several negative repercussions of a default, including that it could trigger runs on banks and money market funds, that it would likely reduce lending to households and businesses, that it would lead to a substantial downgrade to the country’s sovereign credit rating and that it would likely lead to a significant and potentially long-lasting recession.

Treasury projection in May

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent plans to send his department’s default date projection to Congress in May, though he wrote in a March letter that lawmakers should get to work sooner rather than later.

“The period of time that cash and extraordinary measures may last is subject to considerable uncertainty due to a variety of factors, including the unpredictability of tax receipts and the normal changes of forecasting the payments and receipts of the U.S. government months into the future,” Bessent wrote. “We expect to provide an update during the first half of May, after the majority of receipts from the April income tax filing season have been received.”

Bessent then urged lawmakers “to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.”

Republican leaders in Congress and the Trump administration have just a few more months to decide how they want to handle this year’s debt limit debate.

House Republicans included a proposal in their budget resolution to raise the debt limit by $4 trillion later this year, when GOP lawmakers draft the bill to extend the 2017 tax cuts. But the Senate has yet to agree to that blueprint.

Republicans raising the debt limit through the complicated budget reconciliation process would require support from nearly every GOP lawmaker in Congress, since the party holds a paper-thin majority in the House and just 53 seats in the Senate.

Nearly two years ago, when Congress sent the last debt limit bill to the White House, 71 House Republicans and 31 GOP senators voted against approval.

The other option is for Republicans and Democrats to negotiate a bipartisan agreement on the debt limit that can get the support of at least 60 senators to move past the legislative filibuster.

Last updated 10:57 a.m., Mar. 26, 2025

Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com.

WASHINGTON — Americans living in rural communities throughout the country could see their access to health care diminish if Congress changes eligibility for Medicaid or significantly reduces its federal funding.

While rural residents who depend on the state-federal program for lower income people would experience the most substantial impacts, those who have private health insurance or have other coverage, like Medicare, would likely encounter changes as well.

Rural hospitals and primary care physicians’ incomes would likely go down if Medicaid patients are no longer able to afford the same level of health care, potentially leading to reductions in services offered for everyone or even closures, according to experts.

Whitney Zahnd, assistant professor in the Department of Health Management and Policy at the University of Iowa, said that cuts to Medicaid “will disproportionately hit rural communities,” where 24% of people are covered by the program, including 47% of all births and a majority of nursing home patients.

“This is something that’s going to impact them more than those in urban areas and that’s on top of the already lower access to care, higher need for care, older populations,” Zahnd said. “It’s just going to make things that are already a challenge even more challenging for rural communities.”

The Federal Office of Rural Health Policy categorizes about 20.3% of Americans, or 62.8 million people, as living in rural areas, based on 2020 Census data.

Hospital closings in rural America

Rural areas have seen hospitals close their doors at higher rates than facilities in non-rural areas and that trend doesn’t appear likely to reverse any time soon.

The Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has an interactive map showing where 87 rural hospitals have closed completely since 2010, while an additional 65 “no longer provide in-patient services, but continue to provide some health care services.”

And a report from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform released in February shows that more “than 700 rural hospitals — one-third of all rural hospitals in the country — are at risk of closing because of the serious financial problems they are experiencing.”

A health insurance form. (Getty Photos)

Losing income from Medicaid patients could lead to a “domino effect,” Zahnd said, exacerbating budget challenges for rural health care providers and potentially communities overall.

“Economically in a lot of rural communities, the hospital is the largest employer,” Zahnd said. “So if you have a hospital close, it’s not just that people are losing access to health care, they might be losing their job or their family member may be losing their job.”

Rural health care providers that are able to stay open might have to cut the services they offer to keep their accounts from going too far into the red. Such a decision wouldn’t just harm Medicaid patients, but anyone living in a rural community who goes to that doctor or hospital.

“So those are some risks we would anticipate if there are these big cuts to Medicaid,” Zahnd said.

Winners and losers

Timothy McBride, co-director of the Center for Health Economics and Policy at the Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, said during a briefing on Medicaid in mid-March that financial margins for rural hospitals are “razor-thin.”

“Even in the urban hospitals, they’re probably just a few percentage points, but in rural hospitals, they can be just a percentage point or 2 or negative,” McBride said. “So if you take away the Medicaid dollars, they’re certainly going to go negative. And if you wonder why rural hospitals close, that’s why.”

McBride also made the point during a March 13 briefing hosted by SciLine, a service for journalists and scientists based at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, that Medicaid provides funding for a lot of rural health care providers.

“In an economic system, if we cut the spending, we can go, ‘Oh, that’s great. We cut $880 billion.’ But whose income is that? It’s income to hospitals, it’s income to doctors,” McBride said. “And that’s going to, you know, be really hard on rural systems and on rural hospitals and urban systems.

“Yeah, it’s going to help the taxpayers, but, you know, just be mindful of who is going to be hurt. There’s winners and losers here.”

Budget process

Republicans in Congress are planning to use the complicated budget reconciliation process to extend the 2017 tax cuts they enacted during President Donald Trump’s first term to the tune of about $4.5 trillion in new deficits. They also want to boost spending on defense and border security by hundreds of billions of dollars and rewrite energy policy.

In order to pay for some of the package, the House’s budget resolution instructs the committee that oversees Medicaid to cut $880 billion in spending during the next decade — the figure cited by McBride.

Republicans in the Senate haven’t yet agreed to that outline, with several expressing concerns about how steep cuts to federal funding would affect their constituents.

Census data shows that more than 85% of the United States remains rural, meaning every one of the 53 Republican senators represents a state with at least some rural areas.

The U.S. Capitol on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

The Senate in the weeks ahead is expected to debate the budget resolution the House voted along party lines to approve in February. Senators are likely to make changes and send it back across the Capitol for the House to give final approval.

Once the two chambers vote to adopt the same budget resolution with identical reconciliation instructions, Congress can formally begin advancing legislation that could restructure Medicaid. But the GOP will need to stay united throughout the process.

Republicans hold a paper-thin majority in the House of Representatives, requiring that any proposed changes to Medicaid garner the support of centrist and far-right GOP lawmakers.

Even a few defections over Medicaid changes, or other elements in the bill, would stop the package from becoming law.

Avoiding high medical costs, bankruptcy

Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, said that in addition to being “a critical backbone to our healthcare system,” Medicaid helps prevent lower-income Americans from going into medical debt and reduces the number of people landing in emergency departments for conditions that can be managed by primary care providers.

“We spend a lot of time, of course, rightly, thinking about Medicaid and the question of access. But fundamentally, Medicaid is an economic support — a critical piece of the puzzle for families who are struggling to pay bills with the high cost of housing and food,” Alker said. “And so that’s the number one most important thing: If you are uninsured in this country, unless you are a billionaire, you are going to be exposed to high medical costs, and those can lead to debt, and even bankruptcy.”

Patients have their blood pressure checked and other vitals taken at an intake triage at a Remote Area Medical mobile dental and medical clinic on Oct. 7, 2023, in Grundy, Virginia. More than 1,000 people were expected to seek free dental, medical and vision care at the two-day event in western Virginia’s rural and financially struggling area. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

When people lose access to health insurance or programs like Medicaid, they tend to delay or avoid going to primary care providers, who can diagnose issues early and help patients manage chronic conditions.

“That’s not the way we want our health system to work,” Alker said. “Their condition will have worsened. They won’t have had access to prescription drugs that they needed to address chronic conditions, like asthma or diabetes or hypertension. And so they get worse and show up in the emergency room.”

Medicaid also covers health care for about half of the children in the United States and more than 40% of the births, making the program a significant source of income for both pediatricians and OBGYNs. They would see their budgets decreased if patients lose access to the program.

“There are already challenges, and these kinds of cuts will really exacerbate those for families living in these communities, whether they’re enrolled in Medicaid or not,” Alker said.

Entire community affected

Megan Cole, associate professor in the Department of Health Law, Policy and Management at Boston University School of Public Health, said during the SciLine briefing that if Congress cuts Medicaid, it would have wide-ranging effects on rural health care.

“I think these cuts will have impacts not just on Medicaid recipients but on whole economies and health systems; so particularly safety net health systems, community health centers, rural hospitals,” Cole said. “As those institutions have less patient revenue. They may face reductions in services. They may close certain sites depending on finances. They may eliminate staff. So that affects not just the Medicaid enrollees, but also affects anyone who is otherwise served by those providers.”

by Jennifer Shutt and Shauneen Miranda, Ohio Capital Journal

February 21, 2025

WASHINGTON — A federal judge announced Friday she will extend a temporary restraining order that prevents the National Institutes of Health from capping indirect costs paid to research universities and medical schools that receive funding from the federal agency.

Judge Angel Kelley of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts plans to leave the temporary order in place while she decides whether to issue a preliminary injunction that would block the Trump administration change from taking effect while the court cases move forward.

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“I have a lot of work to do,” Kelley said at the conclusion of the two-hour hearing.

Kelley, who is overseeing all three lawsuits filed against the NIH for its decision to cap Facilities and Administrative costs at 15%, said she would issue her ruling on a preliminary injunction “as quickly as I can.”

Three lawsuits

The cases arose in early February after the NIH announced it would no longer pay research universities and medical schools the percentage for indirect costs negotiated in the past. Instead, any institution receiving research funding from NIH would have that funding capped at 15%, a figure much lower than what many of the institutions receive.

The change quickly led to three lawsuits — Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. National Institutes of Health, Association of American Medical Colleges v. National Institutes of Health and Association of American Universities v. Department of Health & Human Services.

Kelley issued an order a few days after NIH’s new funding proposal was announced, preventing it from taking effect in the 22 states whose Democratic attorneys general filed one of the lawsuits challenging the policy change.

The next day, Kelley entered a temporary restraining order in the Association of American Medical Colleges case, blocking the NIH’s proposed 15% cap nationwide.

Friday’s hearing included attorneys in all three cases urging Kelley to enter a preliminary injunction and an attorney for the federal government arguing against it.

The NIH writes on its website that it provides about “50,000 competitive grants to more than 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools, and other research institutions in every state.”

Facilities and administrative costs go to the personnel and infrastructure projects that aren’t associated with one specific grant.

Vanderbilt, Carnegie Mellon

C. Cybele Raver, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, wrote in a statement to the court that “a reduction in the indirect cost rate would be devastating.”

During the current fiscal year, the university expects to receive “$118 million in NIH funding for direct costs, while $44.8 million is allocated for indirect costs.”

“And over the next five years, Vanderbilt anticipates receiving an average of $137 million from the NIH for annual direct costs,” Raver wrote. “Based on the predetermined indirect cost rate of 58.5%, which was agreed upon by the federal government as of May 6, 2021, the University thus expects to receive approximately $53.4 million in indirect cost recovery on an annual basis.”

The university, she wrote, uses indirect costs to construct and maintain facilities, pay utility costs and employ administrative staff.

Theresa S. Mayer, vice president for research at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, wrote in her own statement to the court the school has 189 active research awards from NIH, which total $136.9 million.

Those research projects include working to restore sight to patients with corneal blindness, a large-scale study of families with a history of autism spectrum disorder and developing a novel method for helping patients with long-term paralysis on one side of the body due to stroke.

“By stimulating the spinal cord, this new approach promises to help stroke sufferers recover control of their arm and hand by strengthening pathways damaged by stroke,” Mayer wrote, later adding that “NIH’s proposal to cut indirect cost rates to 15% would end or seriously jeopardize all of the research projects.”

The government’s attorney on Friday requested that if the judge enters a preliminary injunction, she also require the organizations that filed the lawsuits to put up a bond, or financial guarantee.

“If this money goes out there’s no guarantee the government, NIH will get this money back,” the attorney said. “That’s exactly why bonds exist.”

OMB freeze

A separate lawsuit filed by Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia progressed later Friday with a preliminary injunction hearing.

The suit stems from the Office of Management and Budget issuing a memo in late January that directed departments and agencies to pause federal funding on grant and loan programs. The now-rescinded memo quickly became the subject of two lawsuits, both of which resulted in court orders blocking the Trump administration from holding onto the money.

Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island said during the hearing the temporary restraining order he issued last month will remain “in full force and effect” until he rules on the request for a preliminary injunction.

McConnell said he hopes to make that decision within a week, though he left the door open to taking more time.

The original OMB memo created mass confusion over what programs would be affected and which were exempted. Even after court orders were issued and OMB scrapped the original memo, issues accessing payments continued for some.

The attorneys general filed an emergency motion in early February asking McConnell to enforce his temporary restraining order, alleging the Trump administration was holding up certain grant and loan disbursements.

McConnell then ordered the administration to resume all grant and loan payments that had not yet been restarted.

Sarah Rice, deputy chief of the Public Protection Bureau within the Rhode Island attorney general’s office and assistant attorney general, said Friday the states’ loss and inaccessibility of funding has “continued to this day.”

Rice argued that the harm has not been “abstract” and involves matters such as not being able to make payroll and a lack of availability of contractors.

Daniel Schwei, an attorney from the Justice Department representing OMB, said during the hearing the state attorneys general hadn’t “identified funding that is at risk of being paused going forward for which there is no discretion to pause within the agency.”

Schwei said the attorneys general were “essentially asking this court to oversee funding decisions for their states” that come from two dozen federal agencies.

McConnell said in response that’s not something he would ever do.

The National Council of Nonprofits, American Public Health Association, Main Street Alliance and SAGE filed a separate lawsuit in Washington, D.C., related to the OMB memo.

District Judge Loren L. AliKhan of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia held a hearing Thursday over whether to issue a preliminary injunction in that case, but hadn’t issued a ruling as of Friday evening.

AliKhan previously issued an administrative stay and a temporary restraining order.

Last updated 5:58 p.m., Feb. 21, 2025

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com.

by Jennifer Shutt, Nevada Current

February 19, 2025

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats on Wednesday urged Americans throughout the country who rely on Medicaid for their or a family member’s health care to call up GOP members of Congress and urge them not to cut benefits.

The senators’ comments came less than a day after President Donald Trump said during a joint interview with special government employee Elon Musk that aired on Fox News that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid “won’t be touched.”

“Now, if there are illegal migrants in the system, we’re going to get them out of the system, and all of that fraud,” Trump said. “But it’s not going to be touched.”

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Trump has said for months that the GOP wouldn’t cut Social Security or Medicare, but his comments about leaving Medicaid out of the equation could cause significant hurdles for Republicans in Congress.

They have been eyeing the health care program for lower-income Americans as a way to pay for increases in spending on border security and defense, as well as a massive tax cuts package aimed at business.

Children, seniors in nursing homes

Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin said during the Democrats’ press conference that no one in the party wants to see waste or fraud, but cautioned that House Republicans’ plans would lead to more significant changes to Medicaid.

“Let me be clear, the massive cuts that we’re talking about in the House budget resolution are far beyond what efforts to pare back against fraud and waste would achieve,” Baldwin said. “We are talking about massive cuts to children, people with disabilities, rural Americans, seniors, and that is what we need to talk about.”

Baldwin said Medicaid provides health care for more than 70 million Americans, “including over 30 million children and 8 million seniors.”

“Medicaid provides essential care for about 10 million adults with disabilities,” she added. “Medicaid helps almost two-thirds of all nursing home residents have a safe roof over their heads.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said there is no way for Republicans in the House to meet the criteria they’ve laid out for themselves without reducing Medicaid spending.

“Nobody should lose sight of what exactly happened this morning, and that is Donald Trump endorsed the House budget resolution today, and this resolution mandates that $880 billion in cuts come from the House Energy and Commerce Committee,” Wyden said, referring to the panel with jurisdiction over health care. “I’ll just tell you, there is no plausible way to hit that target without hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid.

“And those cuts mean that benefits are going to get cut. Families are going to lose health insurance. Full stop.”

Trump makes opinion known

Republicans in Congress are hoping to pass legislation later this year that would boost funding on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars, remake the country’s energy policy and extend the 2017 GOP tax law.

The House and Senate, both controlled by Republicans, must first adopt a budget resolution with reconciliation instructions before they can use the complicated process to move their bill through both chambers without needing Democratic votes.

The two chambers have been at odds for months over whether to move the border security, defense and energy policies first and then come back to debate the tax law in a second bill, or bundle everything into one package.

Trump opted to stay on the sidelines of the debate for months, but changed course on Wednesday, posting on social media that he wants one “big, beautiful bill.”

Republicans are planning to pay for the new spending by cutting funding on government programs the GOP doesn’t believe are as important or necessary, with hundreds of billions in savings supposed to come from changes to Medicaid.

Cuts to be felt in every state, Dems say

It wasn’t immediately clear Wednesday how Trump’s comments about leaving Medicaid alone would or would not change those plans. But Democrats said Americans should make their voices heard.

Baldwin said that since Republicans are using the budget reconciliation process to get around negotiating with Democrats, the GOP owns every alteration they make to Medicaid, or other government programs.

Changes to Medicaid, she said, would impact Americans in red, blue and purple states.

“And in some cases, the more rural your state, the more severe the ramifications are for deep Medicaid cuts,” Baldwin said. “And so I do hope that not only will we be speaking with our Republican colleagues, but that the administrators of critical access hospitals, the chief medical officers of community health centers, will also be reaching out and sharing the ramifications of these cuts with them.”

New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan said that had Trump been serious about finding and ending waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid and other major health care programs, he wouldn’t have fired government watchdogs as part of a series of mass firings of federal employees.

“Look, the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services has a long record of uncovering fraud, going after wrongdoers, holding them accountable and getting the money back,” Hassan said. “But the Trump administration, as you know, has fired almost all of the inspectors general; the very people who go after fraud, waste and abuse in our government, and have a track record of getting results.

“So, again, they’re speaking out of both sides of their mouth here.”

Last updated 11:40 a.m., Feb. 19, 2025

Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: info@nevadacurrent.com.