Congressional appropriations committees offered a near-total rebuke of President Trump’s proposed downsizing and reshaping of the National Institutes of Health in their spending bill for the 2026 fiscal year.
In a compromise bill released Tuesday, Congress set NIH’s budget at $48.7 billion, a $415 million increase over the 2025 fiscal year, and retained language meant to prevent the Trump administration from slashing support for research overhead. But the measure included a win for the White House, allowing it to continue using a new funding strategy for multiyear grants that resulted in several thousand fewer awards for scientists in 2025.
The consolidated appropriations measure for health and other federal agencies still needs to be passed by the full House and Senate and signed by the president before it becomes law. Legislators from both parties signaled that they’re eager to approve the bill after a bitter debate over the 2026 budget that led to the longest federal government shutdown in history.
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