6/2/2025 ASM Public Policy and Advocacy Update - President's budget proposal

From: Amalia Corby <ACorby@asmusa.org>

Sent: Monday, June 2, 2025 1:55 PM

Subject: 6/2/2025 ASM Public Policy and Advocacy Update - President's budget proposal

Dear PSAC and friends, 

As you have likely seen by now, the President’s FY2026 budget proposal was released on Friday (and subsequently taken down), with additional information provided over the weekend and through this week. The outlook for federally funded science and public health is grim. The ASM team has summarized the topline numbers in the following chart, with additional context below. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding agency funding allocations – we’re happy to provide additional analyses as information becomes available. For now, while the budget document is down, feel free to spend some quality time with the Appendix.

We can’t stress enough how vital it is for you and your colleagues to reach out to Congress, now and in the coming months. Congressional appropriators need to continue hearing about the devastating impacts of the proposed cuts to science and society. Please use our action alert to tell Congress that slashing public health and science by 50% or more will have a devastating impact, and share the link widely with your networks.

FY26 Budget Summary  

National Institutes of Health  

The budget request proposal reduces NIH funding to $23.5 billion, bringing NIH funding back to 2002 levels, while proposing major restructuring of the agency. This represents a $17 billion cut to NIH from FY2025 enacted levels. The budget proposes consolidating the 27 NIH institutes and centers into eight institutes, leaving the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease intact.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases receives a proposed $4.175 billion for FY2026, a $2.3 billion cut from FY2025 levels enacted by Congress.

The proposal eliminates the Fogarty International Center, which funds global health research, as well as the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institute of Nursing Research and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. 

The budget proposal also includes language suspending federally funded gain of function research, pending final administration guidance, consistent with the Trump administration’s “Improving the Safety and Security of Biological Research” executive order.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

The FY26 budget request proposes $4.1 billion for CDC, a $3.9 billion decrease from FY25 levels enacted by Congress. The National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases received a proposed $870 million for FY26, $110 million more than FY25 enacted levels – however, this increase may be offset by internal programmatic shifts. 

Key highlights:

• In collaboration with the National Security Council, the budget establishes a new “biothreat detection system” that can rapidly detect novel pathogens with 24-hour turnaround times. This system will expand the traveler genomic surveillance and advanced molecular detection work performed by the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases by leveraging and building upon existing data available through the Ready Response Data Integration platform..

• The budget also proposes $588 million to establish a new Center for Preparedness and Response, which would subsume several programs under the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR).

National Science Foundation  

Foundational research at the National Science Foundation would suffer severe cuts that stunt the careers of new scientists and hamper American leadership in science and technology. The budget proposes a 55% funding cut for NSF, including a 71% funding cut for the Biological Sciences Directorate (BIO). The budget proposal notes that these cuts mean that 240,000 fewer people—including researchers, students and K-12 educators, will be involved in NSF activities in FY2026 than in FY2024. The budget includes biotechnology, including genomics and synthetic biology, as a cross-cutting focus area for the agency. The budget includes $249 million for biotechnology, a $105 million cut from FY2024 levels.

Department of Energy’s Office of Science

The FY2026 budget request proposes $7.1 billion for the Office of Science, a $1.1 billion cut from FY2025. This includes a $505 million cut for the Biological and Environmental Research program. The budget reduces funding for climate change research while prioritizing areas such as high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, and quantum information science. It allows for continued operation of the Joint Genome Institute and the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory as central scientific user facilities driving BER science. 

Department of Agriculture  

The FY2026 budget request proposes $1.7 billion for the Agricultural Research Service, a $90 million cut from FY2025 enacted levels. The budget also includes an increase of $6 million for operational support at the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, a biocontainment facility in Manhattan, Kansas for the study of foreign, emerging, and zoonotic animal diseases that pose a threat to U.S. animal agriculture and public health. The budget proposes $1 billion for the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), a nearly $700 million cut from FY25 levels. The Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) within NIFA received a proposed $405 million, $40 million less than FY25 levels.  

Food and Drug Administration 

The FY2026 Budget provides $6.755 billion for FDA, an overall decrease of $272 million compared to the FY 2025 Enacted level. This includes about $3.2 billion in discretionary budget authority, a decrease of $410 million, and $3.6 billion in user fees, an increase of $137 million. 

State Department & USAID 

The State Department budget proposes no funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development. The Trump administration effectively eliminated USAID through executive orders to freeze foreign aid and end DEI programs in earlier this year.  

The budget proposal consolidates the State Department and USAID global health funding lines. The proposal includes $3.8 billion for global health programs, a more than 60% cut from FY2025 levels. The budget also eliminates State Department funding for Gavi, which purchases vaccines for children in low and middle-income countries and neglected tropical diseases.

Within the global health funding line, the budget proposes an “off-ramp” US support for HIV/AIDS and turning over HIV/AIDS control programs to recipient countries. The proposal includes $2.9 billion for HIV/AIDS, a $1.8 billion cut from FY2025 levels. The proposal also cuts malaria funding by 46% to $494 million and funding for tuberculosis by 55% to $178 million.

The administration proposes cutting funding for global health security by over 70% to $200 million. The remaining funding will be focused on addressing gaps in recipient countries’ abilities to detect and rapidly respond to outbreaks, including improving laboratory testing, strengthening outbreak event verification and investigation, and enhancing biosafety and biosecurity.

Amalia Corby

Director, Federal Affairs

American Society for Microbiology

202.942.9357 direct | acorby@asmusa.org