The House Committee on Appropriations advanced a budget Thursday that would add billions of new funding for health agencies and discard the Hyde amendment.
The committee voted to advance the funding bill by a 32-24 vote after intense debate over the Hyde amendment, which prohibits federal funding of abortion. An attempt by Republicans to include the Hyde amendment in the bill was voted down 31-26, with Democratic Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, the only pro-life Democrat in the House of representatives, joining Republicans in voting for it.
House Appropriations Committee advances its Labor-HHS-Education spending bill in a 32-24 vote.
Measure does not include the Hyde amendment, as Democrats aim to counter effects of the #SCOTUS Dobbs ruling.
— Jack Fitzpatrick ☘️ (@jackfitzdc) June 30, 2022
In addition to ditching the Hyde amendment, the funding plan adds billions of dollars of new money to the budgets of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The bill increases the budget of the Department of Health and Human Services by $15.6 billion to $124.2 billion, bumps the CDC budget up to $10.5 billion from $8.5 billion and brings the NIH budget up $2.5 billion to $47.5 billion. (RELATED: CDC Caught Using False Data To Recommend Kids’ COVID Vaccine)
The budget also reverses a long-time ban on budget earmarks, which allow representatives to shoehorn in funding for projects in their districts. Those earmarks were often used in the past to bring members on board with legislation they might not otherwise support.
The new budget will now head to the House floor for a vote, alongside budgets for the rest of the federal government’s agencies negotiated in recent weeks by the Appropriations Committee.