Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Steny H Hoyer (MD-05)
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05), Ranking Member of the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Appropriations Subcommittee, delivered opening remarks at the House Appropriations Subcommittee Markup of the FY26 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill. Below is a video and transcript of his remarks:
Click here to watch a full video of his remarks.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. You’d be surprised if I didn’t make the observation [that] this is not a markup. No amendments are going to be offered; no issues will be thoroughly discussed by both sides as to the merits of the proposal. It will be a little bit like DOGE; we’ll know how to cut, we will not know the consequences of those cuts. In one respect, we will not know the consequences of those requests, because we only had three hearings and – we had five hearings. We had two hearings at the beginning, in February, and then we had three hearings in one week. No testimony from anybody who’s worked at the Department of Education, who’s worked at the Department of Labor. Not a single witness from the National Institutes of Health was asked to testify. I’ve served on this committee when every institute was asked to testify on the merits of its budget and the prospects of success.
“This budget says, ‘You’re On Your Own.’ That is the message the Trump Administration has sent to the American people [over] the past seven months. From the Centers for Disease Control to the National Institutes of Health to the VA, Donald Trump and Russell Vought have purged researchers, suspended medical trials, and politicized American science. America will not be great if we continue along that path. One of Trump’s first actions this year was to pause all federal grants, including those for research into new cures and treatments for cancer and other life-threatening diseases. We’ve seen staffers fired from the CDC – as Ms. DeLauro pointed out – 9/11 World Trade Center Health Program, cut. Last week, The New York Times reported that Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium – an institution dedicated to treating brain cancer in children – will no longer receive federal funding. Is that what we’re for? Anybody discuss that? Did the President and his campaign that Mr. – that our Chairman spoke about say to the American people, ‘I’m going to cut research on pediatric cancer?’ Of course not. The American people don’t support that. Recently, the Supreme Court allowed Trump to maintain his freeze on some $2 billion in NIH grants. Just days ago, Trump purged the CDC Director after removing the agency’s entire Vaccine Advisory Committee earlier this summer. A contagion is burning through this Administration: utter delusion.
“I don’t like everything in this bill – as you find is no surprise – especially [that] it zeroes out funding for Full-Service Community Schools to the detriment of countless vulnerable children across the country, including tens of thousands in Maryland. Programs that have been supported over the last four decades by a bipartisan group of men and women who care about making sure that we educate our children. Bill Natcher, who chaired this committee many years ago, said, ‘If you take care of the health of your people and the education of your children, you’ll continue to live in the strongest and best nation on earth.’ I share that perspective. I think most of you share that perspective. This bill does not do that. While I am relieved, very frankly, [that] the bill doesn’t indulge some of the Trump Administration’s worst impulses, the American people deserve better than ‘better than expected.’ They deserve our best. They deserve our best thinking, collegially our best thinking.
“Trump and Vought have made it clear that they will bypass the Congress to accomplish their own political objectives and strengthen their own power. Mr. Chairman, you said we’re going to hit the ground running. There are only 28 days left until the appropriations process has failed. That’s not running. We didn’t have hearings until May. We had two informational sessions that were very helpful and I was interested in, but they were not hearings from people who were running programs or proposing how we should proceed. They were supporting things. Trump and Vought, and Vought in particular, would like to make this committee irrelevant. I speak about the Appropriations Committee, Vought has said he’d like to make it more partisan. I don’t know how it could be more partisan than 37-24. Every vote. 38-23. Who’s counting? (laughter) Some people think that’s funny.
“The legislation before us today means very little if Trump simply refuses to spend the funding we appropriated, as he just did with his pocket rescission of nearly $5 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid. My friend said ‘Amen’ to that. Maybe he thinks that was the right thing to do. If it is, then we ought to adjourn right now and not pretend that we’re making decisions that make a difference. Unless we assert our authority, the Administration will keep purging scientists, it will keep disrupt – I’m almost through – it will keep disrupting medical research, turning the Cancer Moonshot into a pipe dream, it will keep jeopardizing the health of the American people. I believe a day is going to come when Americans no longer have to live with fear of cancer, but they will not do so if we pursue these kinds of policies. I yield back the balance of the time [that] I don’t have. (laughter)”