Senate ·
Protect College Sports Act of 2026
“We need to double the budget for the National Institutes of Health over the next five years. Government medical research saves lives, helps our economy, and keeps us ahead of China. We also need to fix how the agency works. It should stop spending money on politics, cut administrative waste, and be more open about who is getting paid.”
“Mr. President, 2 years ago, Baby KJ was born with a rare, often fatal genetic disorder, and today he is walking and talking. How? Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania--funded by the National Institutes of Health--saved his life with the world’s first personalized gene-editing therapy. And, today, CHOP seeks the next miracle--the next miracle cure--at its Morgan Center for Research & Innovation, which I visited last week. Now, these breakthroughs are possible because NIH funds foundational science that saves lives and lowers the cost of disease. Federal research and private enterprise have made American medicine the envy of the world, and AI is accelerating that discovery like never before. And, yet, at this most exciting moment in medical history, I fear we will surrender our lead to China through underinvestment and mismanagement. This summer, the White House rightly called for a new golden age of American science. Reaching that critical goal takes more Federal R&D investment and long-overdue reform. Now, we as Conservatives should recognize that basic research--like national security--is a public good that private capital rarely funds, and government fills the gap with funding long-term, high-risk work. I know those of us who believe deeply in fiscal discipline may hear a call for more Federal R&D spending and ask: Why--why, especially at a time of enormous deficit and debt? And that is the right question. The Federal Government should not spend more simply for the sake of spending more. But funding basic research saves lives. It lowers the cost of disease, it creates new industries, and it strengthens America’s competitiveness. And if we do this right, this investment will more than pay for itself. And nowhere--nowhere--is that case more clear than in medical science. The Federal Government spends $7 trillion a year. Yet, less than 1 percent of that goes to NIH research, and that sliver delivers outsized returns. NIH’s Diabetes Prevention Program, for example, cut type 2 diabetes by 58 percent. NIH-supported eye disease research halved legal blindness from wet macular degeneration, saving roughly $28.5 billion. And CAR T-cell therapy, pioneered at Penn with NIH support, reengineered patients’ T cells to attack cancer-producing, decade-long remissions and replacing years and years of costly treatments. The list goes on and on. And, nationally, every NIH dollar also generates $2.50 in economic activity. In Pennsylvania, for example, NIH research sustains over 21,000 jobs and generates more than $5 billion annually. Now, earlier this year, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya and I saw how researchers in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are using artificial intelligence to detect cancer, to speed drug recovery, and to make surgery far more precise--amazing--amazing to see what is happening. And, yet, America’s global leadership is slipping. China is closing the gap. They have increased R&D spending from 36 percent of what we spend in the United States to parity in 2024. And, meanwhile, we are underinvesting in discovery. Federal R&D fell from 1.9 percent of GDP in 1964 to 0.6 percent of GDP in 2024. And since 2003, the NIH budget has shrunk by more than 10 percent, adjusted for inflation. Sadly, we have also let politics intrude on science. The Biden administration NIH, for example, gave CHOP--the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia--$155,000 to develop training on ``structural racism’’ and ``intersectional microaggressions.’’ Such initiatives abuse taxpayer money, and they undermine the public trust. Finally, NIH has become opaque and bureaucratic. Nearly 1 in 3 grant dollars goes to overhead. Taxpayers can’t easily see researchers’ financial ties to industry, and young scientists--young scientists with some of the biggest, boldest ideas--they often have to wait until the age of 42 to receive major funding from NIH. Each of these failures has a fix. First, rather than cut NIH by 40 percent, as OMB proposed last year, we should double the $48 billion budget within 5 years. Now, I understand these are big numbers, but if these dollars yield discoveries that trim our $5.3 trillion health bill by just 1 percent, they will more than pay for themselves. And, more importantly, they will demonstrate that this AI revolution, it truly helps everyone. Second, we must prioritize merit-based science. This administration rightly reassessed grants lacking merit, and it canceled nearly 1,400 midstream--many over diversity, equity, and inclusion language that was in their proposals. Now, while some of these grants deserve to be canceled, some were legitimate research with buzzwords that were inserted to get approval from the Biden administration. On half of those grants alone, taxpayers had already spent $1.3 billion for work that will never be finished. So rather than waste that investment, we should let those researchers revise their applications for legitimate research and keep working. And that is why last week, I led five Senate Republican colleagues in a letter, urging the administration to do just that. Third, we must demand accountability. We must replace NIH’s costly overhead with one that rewards efficiency, makes institutions compete for infrastructure dollars, and gives the smaller research centers a fair shot at receiving those grants. I will soon introduce the Sunshine for Researchers Act to require federally funded researchers to disclose their industry ties. And my bipartisan NIH Mentorship Modernization Act, introduced with Senator Coons, would help retain these amazing great, young scientists. At this critical--critical--moment, incrementalism is our greatest enemy. America was built by pilgrims and pioneers who dared to push beyond the known. We must summon that spirit again by investing boldly, by prioritizing science, and by reforming relentlessly. And if we dare--if we dare--KJ’s story can be the beginning of a new golden age of American science that burns bright for decades to come. I yield the floor.”
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Mr. President, 2 years ago, Baby KJ was born with a rare, often fatal genetic disorder, and today he is walking and talking. How? Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania--funded by the National Institutes of Health--saved his life with the world’s first personalized gene-editing therapy. And, today, CHOP seeks the next miracle--the next miracle cure--at its Morgan Center for Research & Innovation, which I visited last week. Now, these breakthroughs are possible because NIH funds foundational science that saves lives and lowers the cost of disease. Federal research and private enterprise have made American medicine the envy of the world, and AI is accelerating that discovery like never before. And, yet, at this most exciting moment in medical history, I fear we will surrender our lead to China through underinvestment and mismanagement. This summer, the White House rightly called for a new golden age of American science. Reaching that critical goal takes more Federal R&D investment and long-overdue reform. Now, we as Conservatives should recognize that basic research--like national security--is a public good that private capital rarely funds, and government fills the gap with funding long-term, high-risk work. I know those of us who believe deeply in fiscal discipline may hear a call for more Federal R&D spending and ask: Why--why, especially at a time of enormous deficit and debt? And that is the right question. The Federal Government should not spend more simply for the sake of spending more. But funding basic research saves lives. It lowers the cost of disease, it creates new industries, and it strengthens America’s competitiveness. And if we do this right, this investment will more than pay for itself. And nowhere--nowhere--is that case more clear than in medical science. The Federal Government spends $7 trillion a year. Yet, less than 1 percent of that goes to NIH research, and that sliver delivers outsized returns. NIH’s Diabetes Prevention Program, for example, cut type 2 diabetes by 58 percent. NIH-supported eye disease research halved legal blindness from wet macular degeneration, saving roughly $28.5 billion. And CAR T-cell therapy, pioneered at Penn with NIH support, reengineered patients’ T cells to attack cancer-producing, decade-long remissions and replacing years and years of costly treatments. The list goes on and on. And, nationally, every NIH dollar also generates $2.50 in economic activity. In Pennsylvania, for example, NIH research sustains over 21,000 jobs and generates more than $5 billion annually. Now, earlier this year, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya and I saw how researchers in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are using artificial intelligence to detect cancer, to speed drug recovery, and to make surgery far more precise--amazing--amazing to see what is happening. And, yet, America’s global leadership is slipping. China is closing the gap. They have increased R&D spending from 36 percent of what we spend in the United States to parity in 2024. And, meanwhile, we are underinvesting in discovery. Federal R&D fell from 1.9 percent of GDP in 1964 to 0.6 percent of GDP in 2024. And since 2003, the NIH budget has shrunk by more than 10 percent, adjusted for inflation. Sadly, we have also let politics intrude on science. The Biden administration NIH, for example, gave CHOP--the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia--$155,000 to develop training on ``structural racism’’ and ``intersectional microaggressions.’’ Such initiatives abuse taxpayer money, and they undermine the public trust. Finally, NIH has become opaque and bureaucratic. Nearly 1 in 3 grant dollars goes to overhead. Taxpayers can’t easily see researchers’ financial ties to industry, and young scientists--young scientists with some of the biggest, boldest ideas--they often have to wait until the age of 42 to receive major funding from NIH. Each of these failures has a fix. First, rather than cut NIH by 40 percent, as OMB proposed last year, we should double the $48 billion budget within 5 years. Now, I understand these are big numbers, but if these dollars yield discoveries that trim our $5.3 trillion health bill by just 1 percent, they will more than pay for themselves. And, more importantly, they will demonstrate that this AI revolution, it truly helps everyone. Second, we must prioritize merit-based science. This administration rightly reassessed grants lacking merit, and it canceled nearly 1,400 midstream--many over diversity, equity, and inclusion language that was in their proposals. Now, while some of these grants deserve to be canceled, some were legitimate research with buzzwords that were inserted to get approval from the Biden administration. On half of those grants alone, taxpayers had already spent $1.3 billion for work that will never be finished. So rather than waste that investment, we should let those researchers revise their applications for legitimate research and keep working. And that is why last week, I led five Senate Republican colleagues in a letter, urging the administration to do just that. Third, we must demand accountability. We must replace NIH’s costly overhead with one that rewards efficiency, makes institutions compete for infrastructure dollars, and gives the smaller research centers a fair shot at receiving those grants. I will soon introduce the Sunshine for Researchers Act to require federally funded researchers to disclose their industry ties. And my bipartisan NIH Mentorship Modernization Act, introduced with Senator Coons, would help retain these amazing great, young scientists. At this critical--critical--moment, incrementalism is our greatest enemy. America was built by pilgrims and pioneers who dared to push beyond the known. We must summon that spirit again by investing boldly, by prioritizing science, and by reforming relentlessly. And if we dare--if we dare--KJ’s story can be the beginning of a new golden age of American science that burns bright for decades to come. I yield the floor.