On Friday, the federal judge overseeing the lawsuit against the National Institutes of Health — filed by 13 American universities including Tufts — extended the block on the agency’s attempt to reduce funding for indirect medical research costs during the case’s first hearing. The extension allows the judge more time to make a final decision on the case.
Following several other cases levied by state attorneys and medical associations, U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley first issued a temporary restraining order earlier this month to halt a Feb. 8 proposed cut of federal support for indirect costs of medical research nationwide.
Plaintiff lawyers detailed the “irreparable harm” posed by the new 15% flat rate of indirect coverage — for expenses not directly related to individual research projects, like the routine maintenance of laboratory space — and said that the cuts would result in personnel layoffs and loss of “highly skilled researchers.”
For Tufts, the cut would cause a loss of $20 million in federal funding for over 200 federally funded research projects and lead to immediate layoffs.
Under the potential funding change, the salaries of researchers working on just one project would be provided for, while that of an employee handling waste management of an entire building would not, according to plaintiff lawyer John Bueker.
“Waste needs to be properly disposed of [and] animals need to be adequately taken care of,” Bueker said, referencing the services required for medical research threatened by the NIH cuts. “If you lose these people, there’s no necessarily getting them back.”
As evidence of potential lasting damages by the funding cuts, lawyers also referenced the recent construction of a research building at the California Institute of Technology. The facility was built with the expectation that the $200 million price tag would be partly covered by the NIH. Going forward, compensating for the project will create a “hole in the research budget” for the university.
On behalf of the NIH, attorney Brian Lea argued that the cut would not cause “irreparable” harm and that lost funds could be recuperated through other avenues. According to Lea, the change is merely intended to reallocate the “slices of the pie” by placing less burden on the executive branch for indirect cost coverage.
Plaintiff lawyers also argued that the NIH and President Donald Trump could only make a cut with authorization from Congress. An earlier attempt to cut grants for indirect costs made by the Trump administration in 2017 was stopped by Congress. The plaintiffs questioned the president’s ability to make unilateral cuts, arguing that the NIH had acted impermissibly and without precedent.
While the cut proposed in 2017 was designed to save government money, Lea countered that the currently proposed cut would instead repurpose funding for direct costs.
The plaintiffs also argued that the federal government violated the Administrative Procedures Act. They said that the NIH’s notice failed to properly explore the ramifications of cuts and failed to explain why the cuts are being made. The lawyers argued that the notice provided no clear justification for the cuts and that the 15% flat rate was arbitrary.
“I have a lot of work to do,” Kelley said at the end of the hearing.
