The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bipartisan bill last week that would provide $36.1 billion to the National Institutes of Health for next fiscal year, which starts next month, reports The New York Times.
This decision comes just six months after President Donald Trump proposed cutting the agency's spending by 22 percent. The president's proposal "would have crippled American innovation in medical research, delayed new cures and treatments and brought NIH funding to its lowest level since 2002," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill.
"The administration's proposal would radically change the nature of the federal government's relationship with the research community, abandoning the government's long-established responsibility for underwriting much of the nation's research infrastructure, and jeopardizing biomedical research nationwide," the Senate Appropriations Committee said in a report on its bill, according to the NYT.
The House Appropriations Committee also rejected President Trump's proposed cut to the NIH, proposing a $1.1 billion increase for the agency's funding.