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U.S. judge blocks White House cuts in research grants. NY, NJ joined states fighting the cuts.
By
Caroline Lewis
Published Feb 10, 2025
Modified Feb 10, 2025
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Sean Anthony Eddy/Getty Images
By
Caroline Lewis
Published Feb 10, 2025
Modified Feb 10, 2025
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A federal judge in Massachusetts issued a temporary order on Monday blocking the White House from cutting billions of dollars in federal grants for scientific research.
U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley issued an order putting the cuts on hold pending a hearing Feb. 21. The move came after 22 state attorneys general, including from New York and New Jersey, filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration plan.
The lawsuit seeks to stop the National Institutes of Health from implementing an across-the-board cap on the amount of “indirect” federal research funding that can go toward facilities and administrative costs.
The cap, announced on Friday, would lead to millions of dollars in lost funding at local universities and research labs. It would threaten jobs in the life sciences sector and the future of research on a wide range of diseases, according to academics who spoke with Gothamist and advocacy groups like the Greater New York Hospital Association and the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Monday's court action is the latest legal challenge to the sweeping policy changes being pushed by the new administration just weeks into the president’s second term. Wholesale changes across a range of areas – including eliminating foreign aid programs, ending certain protections for immigrants, and terminating whole job categories of federal workers – have already drawn lawsuits from unions, attorneys general and others.
The NIH funding on the chopping block covers a range of costs at research institutions, including maintenance and administrative staff, energy and utility bills and expenses related to ensuring labs meet safety and security standards.
The NIH defended the cuts in new guidance issued Friday, saying it has to “ensure taxpayer dollars are used in ways that benefit the American people and improve their quality of life.” The NIH acknowledged that the funding is used to cover overhead costs, but said those costs are “difficult to oversee.”
But the lawsuit filed Monday argues that the cuts would “devastate” the country’s public health infrastructure.
“Without relief from NIH’s action, these institutions’ cutting-edge work to cure and treat human disease will grind to a halt,” the lawsuit said.
As it stands, each university or institution negotiates its own rate for supplemental funding with the federal government. At Columbia University, for instance, the funding allocated for facilities and administration can increase the total amount of a research grant by 65%. The freestanding Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has negotiated a rate of 92% — meaning nearly half of the federal funding that supports research at the facility comes from the money set aside for indirect costs.
But under President Donald Trump, the NIH is seeking to cap that supplemental funding at 15%.
Overall, New York currently has more than $5 billion in active NIH grants, while New Jersey has more than $600 million, according to a federal database.
If the 15% cap is enacted, New York institutions stand to lose $850 million, the Greater New York Hospital Association calculated.
Maureen Barr runs a lab at Rutgers University in New Jersey that revolves around a tiny, translucent worm known as C. elegans. The worms have components that act similar to those found in human genes, and Barr and her team of researchers are using them to better understand the genetic mutations that cause a type of kidney disease that frequently leads to kidney failure.
Barr, like many scientists across the region and country, is now worried about her lab’s future. Before the NIH announced cuts to facilities and maintenance funding Friday, Barr was already worried about the future of a diversity grant that funds the salary of one of her lab staffers.
Federal web pages related to grants that are designed to diversify the scientific workforce — including by bringing in people with lower incomes or from rural areas — have been taken down.
Now, Barr said, she’s concerned that her university may not be able to continue to pay the support staff who help to keep her lab functioning.
As it stands, she said, maintenance staff is just a phone call away if there’s a problem with one of the lab’s super-cold freezers that are used to preserve samples, or an issue with other equipment.
“In the summertime, the building gets really hot and the alarms go off and [the freezers] start to go down,” Barr said. “And if we lost those samples, it would be decades of work.”
Rutgers officials sent out a letter to faculty and staff Monday morning saying that the university stands to lose $22 million in the current fiscal year if the 15% cap on indirect costs moves forward, and $57.5 million annually if the cap continues beyond this year.
In fiscal year 2025, Rutgers was awarded almost $250 million in NIH grants spanning research areas such as heart disease, cancer and neuroscience, according to the letter, which the university shared with Gothamist.
This article was updated with additional information from the U.S. District Court.
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Health and Science
Caroline Lewis
Caroline Lewis is on the health care beat for WNYC and Gothamist. She has covered COVID, a nurses' strike, the overdose crisis and New York’s marijuana legalization effort, and spent a year investigating patients' medical bills. She always wants to hear about how everyday New Yorkers experience the health system. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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