Legislative Update – July 2026

FY 2027 Funding and Federal Policies Affecting Vision Research

Congress is continuing its work on fiscal year 2027 appropriations, with the House advancing funding bills covering the National Institutes of Health, the National Eye Institute, and the Department of Defense’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs. The Senate is developing its own proposals, while lawmakers in both chambers continue to raise concerns about delayed NIH grant awards, changes to the way NIH finances multiyear grants, and broader Administration policies affecting federal research funding.

House Maintains NIH and NEI Funding

The House Appropriations Committee has approved its FY27 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies appropriations bill. The legislation would provide approximately $47.3 billion in base funding for NIH, an increase of $100 million over FY26 that would effectively maintain the agency near its current funding level. An additional $1.5 billion (level funding) would be provided separately for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, bringing the total to $48.8B.

Importantly, the House bill continues to reject proposals to eliminate or consolidate NIH Institutes and Centers. However, as our community knows, near-level funding represents a loss of purchasing power after accounting for inflation and increasing research costs. Alliance for Vision Research continues to work with partner organizations to support a request of at least $51.3 billion in base funding for NIH to sustain scientific opportunity, protect the biomedical research workforce, and support the development of new treatments and cures.

For the National Eye Institute, the House bill recommends $896.549 million, the same amount provided in FY26. This rejects the Administration’s proposed reduction to approximately $833 million but falls short of the Alliance for Vision Research’s request of $1 billion in NEI funding.

The House report continues to preserve NEI as an independent NIH Institute and includes language encouraging additional research into Usher syndrome. Maintaining NEI’s independence remains critically important, but without meaningful funding growth, the Institute will remain limited in its ability to pursue promising scientific opportunities across retinal disease, glaucoma, corneal disease, optic neuropathies, vision rehabilitation, artificial intelligence, regenerative medicine, and other areas of vision science.

Senate Appropriations Outlook

The Senate has not yet publicly released its FY27 Labor-HHS appropriations bill or proposed funding levels for NIH and NEI. At this time, the Senate Appropriations Committee is not expected to hold a traditional public markup of the Labor-HHS bill before the August recess, especially given the recent passing of Senator Lindsey Graham and the hospitalization of Senator Mitch McConnell, who both sit on the Appropriations Committee. While a traditional markup is not currently expected, appropriators are expected to publish bill text, explanatory materials, and may include proposed funding tables before Senators leave Washington.

The Senate proposal will be particularly important because the chamber has historically taken a more bipartisan approach to NIH funding. During a May 21 hearing on the FY27 NIH budget, Labor-HHS Subcommittee Chair Shelley Moore Capito emphasized that biomedical research has long been a bipartisan and bicameral priority and pointed to the $415 million NIH increase enacted for FY26.

In addition to determining topline NIH and NEI funding levels, Senators may consider provisions in their bill governing how and when NIH awards its appropriated funding. These could include:

• Requirements for the timely release of funding opportunities and grant awards.
• Reporting requirements on delayed, canceled, or terminated grants.
• Restrictions on the proportion of NIH funding used to pay the full multiyear cost of grants in the first year of an award.
• Direction to maximize the number of new and competing research project grants.
• Continued protections for negotiated indirect-cost rates.
• Oversight or restrictions on political, departmental, or other reviews occurring after scientific peer review.

One potential model includes an amendment offered by Senator Tammy Baldwin during consideration of the FY26 Labor-HHS bill. That amendment sought to prevent NIH from increasing the proportion of grants receiving full, upfront multiyear funding beyond the proportion used in FY24.

Under NIH’s traditional approach, most multiyear research grants receive funding one year at a time, subject to continued progress and congressional appropriations. Beginning in FY25, NIH substantially increased the use of “forward funding” or multiyear funding, under which the agency obligates several years of a grant’s anticipated cost in the first year. Although this can protect an individual award from future budget uncertainty, it uses considerably more current-year funding and can sharply reduce the number of new grants NIH is able to issue.

The Baldwin amendment did not ultimately appear in the final FY26 legislation. However, the enacted agreement imposed a related limit on the amount NIH may obligate for awards that fully fund future-year commitments. It also directed NIH to fund as many meritorious new awards as possible and required regular briefings to Congress on grant announcements, awards, continuations, cancellations, terminations, and the use of multiyear funding by each Institute and Center.

For FY27, we (and other partner organizations) have urged the Senate to revisit stronger language that more directly returns NIH’s use of forward funding to FY24 practices. Such a provision would not necessarily prohibit multiyear funding altogether. Rather, it would prevent NIH from using a substantially greater share of its annual appropriation to prepay future years of individual grants, thereby preserving more funding for new and competing awards during the current fiscal year.

Congressional Hearings Highlight Concerns About Grant Delays and Forward Funding

Members of both parties have raised concerns about the pace and structure of NIH grantmaking during congressional oversight and budget hearings this spring and summer.

At a March 17 House Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee hearing, lawmakers questioned NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya about the slow pace of grant awards and whether NIH would be able to obligate its full FY26 appropriation before the fiscal year ends on September 30.

Representative Steny Hoyer cited extraordinarily low early-year grant activity at the National Cancer Institute and asked what effect the delays could have on research. Dr. Bhattacharya responded that NIH reporting data were lagging and said that NCI had additional new and continuing awards moving through the process. He repeatedly assured the subcommittee that NIH intended to spend its full enacted budget.

Representative Stephanie Bice separately asked whether NIH was experiencing bottlenecks in issuing grants and what steps the agency was taking to address them. The hearing demonstrated that concerns over grant timing were not confined to one party or one area of research. Members were seeking assurances that congressional funding would translate into awards to researchers rather than remain unobligated or be concentrated in a late-year rush.

The May 21 Senate hearing also provided an opportunity for senators to question NIH leadership about the implementation of FY26 funding, the Administration’s FY27 proposals, Institute leadership vacancies, grant administration, and the stability of the biomedical research enterprise. Senators’ interest in these issues suggests that the FY27 Senate bill may include both funding and policy provisions intended to increase transparency and congressional oversight and direction over NIH grantmaking.

The concerns expressed at these hearings are directly connected to the forward-funding debate and the continued proposals to cut indirect rates and to increase forward funding in the Administration’s FY27 request. When NIH uses a large share of its annual appropriation to pay several future years of selected grants, the agency may technically obligate its budget while supporting fewer individual awards. Congress therefore is examining not only whether NIH spends its appropriation, but is now, more than ever, looking at how it spends the funding, how many grants it supports, and whether awards are being made in a timely and predictable manner.

NIH and NEI Grant Funding Delays Continue

Publicly available NIH RePORTER data indicate that NIH has increased its pace of grantmaking since the beginning of the fiscal year, but it continues to trail normal historical patterns.

An Association of American Medical Colleges analysis found that, as of June 30:

• NIH had obligated approximately $18 billion for extramural grants, representing about 53 percent of its estimated FY26 grant budget.
• NIH funding obligations were $2.6 billion below the comparable point in FY24, before this Administration took office.
• NIH had issued nearly 9,000 fewer awards than it had by the same point in FY24.
• New and competing awards remained 22 percent below FY24, which is consistent with what we saw in FY25.
• Competitive research project grants were down 11 percent.
• Competitive R01 awards were down 18 percent.
• More than 400 projects across NIH reportedly were at least 60 days past their expected renewal dates.

NIH’s grantmaking pace is now ahead of the unusually slow FY25 pace, but that is not an indication that operations have returned to “normal.” FY25 was an uncharacteristic year marked by disruptions, delayed reviews, policy changes, and a large concentration of awards near the end of the fiscal year, and some of those concerns and challenges have persisted.

As of June 30, NIH had obligated approximately $769 million to 1,069 competitively awarded, multiyear-funded research project grants. This included 132 competitive R01 awards funded through the multiyear mechanism.

Reports from vision researchers and institutions continue to indicate delays and uncertainty involving expected NEI awards and continuations. Those experiences are consistent with the broader NIH-wide data, which show improvement from the beginning of FY26 but continue underperformance and delays relative to FY24.

House Proposes Major Reduction to Defense Medical Research

The House FY27 Defense appropriations proposal would provide $916.5 million for the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, a reduction of $353.5 million, or approximately 28 percent, from the FY26 level of $1.27 billion.

Within that total, the House proposes only $4 million for the Vision Research Program (VRP), down from $10 million in FY26. This represents a 60 percent reduction and would leave the program at only one-fifth of the $20 million provided in FY24.

The VRP supports research addressing eye injuries, visual dysfunction, traumatic brain injury-related vision impairment, retinal damage, and other vision conditions affecting service members, veterans, and the broader public. Its peer-reviewed portfolio fills a distinctive role that is not replicated by NEI or other federal programs.

The proposed VRP cut is part of a broader challenge across CDMRP. According to our analysis, the House bill would:

• Eliminate the Bone Marrow Failure Research Program, Combat Readiness Medical Research Program, Epilepsy Research Program, Hearing Restoration Research Program, Joint Warfighter Medical Research Program, Military Burn Research Program, and Reconstructive Transplant Research Program.
• Reduce the Autism Research Program from $8 million to $4 million.
• Reduce the Melanoma Research Program from $40 million to $15 million.
• Reduce the Vision Research Program from $10 million to $4 million.
• Maintain the Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health Research Program at $40.5 million, far below its FY24 level of $175 million.
• Maintain the Toxic Exposures Research Program at $15 million, half its FY24 level.
• Increase funding for several programs, including ALS, Alzheimer’s disease, endometrial cancer, Parkinson’s disease, prostate cancer, spinal cord injury, and tuberous sclerosis research.

These figures represent the House proposal, not final FY27 funding. The Senate has not yet released its Defense appropriations funding table, and the two chambers ultimately will have to negotiate final program levels. The Alliance for Vision Research is working to develop a sign-on letter that will be circulated later this summer and fall asking Congress to ensure at least level funding of $10M in the VRP compared to FY26 and an increase back to the previous level of $20M to support ocular trauma research that we’re seeing on the battlefields with the increased use of drone warfare.

OMB Grantmaking Proposal Draws Broad Concern

The public-comment period closed July 13 on the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed revisions to the federal Uniform Guidance governing grants and cooperative agreements.

The proposal could significantly alter the way federal research grants are reviewed, approved, administered, and terminated. Among its most consequential provisions are expanded pre-award review by senior political appointees, language making scientific peer-review recommendations advisory rather than controlling, broader authority to impose award conditions or terminate grants, changes affecting collaborative subawards, and new provisions involving conferences, publications, intellectual property, data rights, and research dissemination.

Alliance for Vision Research submitted formal comments urging OMB to withdraw or substantially revise the proposal. The comments emphasized the need to:

• Preserve independent scientific peer review as the foundation of federal research funding.
• Protect the specialized role and scientific expertise of NEI.
• Prevent political or subjective criteria from displacing scientific merit.
• Minimize unnecessary administrative burdens and award delays.
• Protect collaboration among academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, healthcare providers, patient organizations, and industry.
• Preserve the timely dissemination of research findings.
• Provide researchers and institutions with predictable, transparent standards throughout the grant lifecycle.

Alliance for Vision Research warned that increased uncertainty, additional review layers, and broader termination authority could discourage early-career scientists, destabilize long-term research programs and clinical trials, and delay the development of diagnostics, treatments, and cures for patients with vision-threatening conditions. The Alliance’s announcement and full comments are available on its website.

OMB must now review the public comments before deciding whether to withdraw the proposal, issue revisions, or proceed toward a final rule. This was one of the largest ever responses to a regulatory proposal, with a UNC Chapel Hill analysis showing that there were nearly 500,000 comments submitted and that 95% of them were in opposition to the proposed rule. There is no fixed deadline requiring OMB to respond or finalize changes, but given the breadth of the proposal and the volume and substance of the comments submitted, any final action is likely to receive close congressional scrutiny and could face significant legal challenges if the Administration tries to move forward without addressing the public concerns outlined.

Continued Advocacy Is Essential

The House proposals demonstrate that Congress remains willing to reject some of the Administration’s most significant proposed reductions and structural changes. However, level funding for NEI, the continued slowdown in NIH grantmaking, expanded use of forward funding, and the proposed 60 percent reduction to the Vision Research Program within CDMRP all continue to present significant concerns for the vision research community.

Alliance for Vision Research will continue urging Congress to:

• Provide at least $51.3 billion in base funding for NIH.
• Provide $1 billion for NEI and preserve it as an independent Institute.
• Support initiatives to encourage NIH and NEI to issue grants in a timely, predictable, and transparent manner consistent with past practice.
• Limit excessive use of forward funding so that more research projects can receive support.
• Restore the Vision Research Program to at least $20 million.
• Protect independent scientific peer review and the stability of the federal research enterprise.
• Withdraw or substantially revise the proposed OMB grantmaking rule.