FISCAL YEAR 2024 LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Updated: July 13, 2023

FISCAL YEAR 2024 LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES,

EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS BILL

The Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill provides $147

billion for programs under the jurisdiction of the Subcommittee, which is $60.3 billion (29%)

below the FY23 enacted level and $73 billion below the President’s Budget Request. The bill

protects life, promotes American values, prioritizes medical research, and combats the opioid

epidemic – all while reining in wasteful bureaucracy and enhancing oversight and accountability.

TOP LINE MESSAGING

• Reins in wasteful bureaucracy and enhances oversight and accountability by:

o Restoring fiscal responsibility and reducing the scope of social spending by $60.3

billion (29%) from the FY23 enacted level;

o Eliminating 61 programs and rejecting any new controversial programs in the

President’s Budget Request; and

o Strengthening congressional oversight of funds provided in the bill and restricting the

Administration’s ability to ignore congressional directives to fund an extreme,

partisan agenda.

• Protects life and reprioritizes funding to address the needs of the most vulnerable by:

o Maintaining long-standing pro-life provisions that prevent federal funds from being

used for abortion with limited exceptions and protect the rights of all individuals to

not be forced to participate in an abortion.

o Fully supporting basic biomedical research investigating cures for cancers,

Alzheimer’s disease, other chronic diseases, and rare diseases;

o Providing funds to combat opioid abuse and support substance-use prevention

and treatment programs;

o Targeting resources to rural communities, including vital telehealth and opioid

response resources;

o Prioritizing funding to help all school districts educate children with special needs;

o Supporting Pell Grants to ensure an educated workforce in the next generation; and

o Providing funds for charter school programs.

Updated: July 13, 2023

BILL HIGHLIGHTS

Cuts to Wasteful Spending

• Reduces social spending programs by $60.3 billion, which is 29% below the FY23 enacted

level.

• Eliminates 61 programs, including 49 that are not authorized, and reduces funding for 54

other programs.

• Prohibits funds for unnecessary regulations and controversial Executive Orders and

programs.

Conservative Priorities

Promotes Freedom and American Values

• Prohibits the use of funds to promote or advance Critical Race Theory (CRT).

• Prohibits implementation of the Biden Administration’s Executive Orders on Diversity,

Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).

• Prohibits funds to enforce Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria for investing

in retirement plans.

• Protects Americans against religious discrimination related to their views on marriage.

• Prohibits implementation of other controversial Biden Administration rules and Executive

Orders, such as student loan repayment waivers and rules enforcing “gender identity” that

require biological boys to be allowed to compete against girls in women’s sports.

• Includes a new private right of action to ensure that individuals who believe their conscience

rights under the Weldon Amendment have been violated can have their complaint heard and

adjudicated by a court, rather than the biased Biden Administration Office for Civil Rights at

HHS.

• Maintains the Dickey Amendment, which ensures that federal funds cannot be used to

advocate or promote gun control.

• Protects religious freedom of students on college campuses with language that ensures

religious student groups are treated equally and not discriminated against in access to campus

facilities or recognition.

• Prohibits the use of funds to perform medical procedures that attempt to change an

individual’s biological gender.

• Prohibits implementation of Biden Executive Order on Gender Identity and Sexual

Orientation Discrimination.

Updated: July 13, 2023

Protects Life

• Maintains the Hyde Amendment and ensures no federal funding can be used for abortion-on-

demand.

• Maintains the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, a legacy rider that prohibits the creation or

destruction of human embryos for research purposes.

• Prohibits the NIH from using human fetal tissue obtained from an elective abortion to be

used in taxpayer-funded research.

• Prohibits Planned Parenthood-affiliated clinics from receiving funds.

• Prohibits funding for any “abortion hotline” or website run by the Department of Health and

Human Services that is used to provide information on where to obtain an abortion.

• Disallows HHS from requiring any grantee to refer for abortions or to act in contravention of

any state law restricting referral for or performance of abortions.

• Stops implementation of two Biden Executive Orders issued following the Dobbs Supreme

Court decision, which are intended to increase access to abortions in states that have limited

them by state law.

• Eliminates funding for Title X family planning, which are often granted to controversial

organizations like Planned Parenthood.

Eliminates Waste and Abuse in the Government

• Prohibits any funding in the bill from going to Ecohealth Alliance (the entity that originally

sub-granted taxpayer funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China), the Wuhan

Institute of Virology, or any lab located in the People’s Republic of China, Cuba, Iran, the

People’s Republic of Korea, Russia, Venezuela, or any other nation that is determined to be a

foreign adversary of the United States.

• Prohibits funding from being used for any “gain-of-function” research as was being done on

bat coronaviruses prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Prohibits enforcement of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) COVID-19

vaccine mandate on health care workers.

• Includes provisions preventing the Biden Administration from moving forward with

business-killing regulations relating to independent contractors, joint employer status, and

federally forced wage rates for agricultural workers.

Strengthens Oversight of Taxpayer Dollars

• Includes provisions requiring increased reporting to Congress on spending plans and

unobligated balances.

• Requires all “Questions for the Record” submitted from any Congressional Committee to be

answered within 45 business days or the agency will receive a financial penalty to its

administrative accounts.

Updated: July 13, 2023

• Requires the Department of Health and Human Services to provide Congress an annual

report on the number and cost of abortions performed under the Hyde Amendment

exceptions within a certain time frame or face a penalty of $1,000 per day from the

Secretary’s administrative account.

• Eliminates the Office of Communication at the Department of Education.

Updated: July 13, 2023

DETAILED FUNDING SUMMARY

Department of Education

Provides a discretionary total of $67.4 billion to the Department of Education, which is $12.1

billion (15%) below the FY23 enacted level and $22.6 billion below the President’s Budget

Request.

• Reduces funding by $14.7 billion (80%) for Title I grants for states with schools in which

children from low-income families make up at least 40 percent of enrollment. Approximately

$31 billion provided during the pandemic remains unspent and further investments will not

be provided until these funds are used responsibly.

• Eliminates programs that do not fulfill the core mission, tasks, and functions of the

Department, including teacher training programs that send teachers to expensive weekend

workshops, programs that support organizations that seek to undermine the unity of our

country, and programs that are duplicative, or narrowly tailored to a small set of recipients.

• Maintains funding for school safety programs, charter schools, and the Impact Aid Program,

which supports school districts affected by a federal presence such as a military base.

• Maintains funding of $14.2 billion to provide support for local school districts to meet their

commitment to educating all children with disabilities in a free, appropriate, and public

setting, reflecting the federal partnership in achieving this goal.

• Maintains funding to support people with disabilities at schools like Gallaudet University for

the Deaf and the American Printing House for the Blind.

• Maintains funding for career and technical training grants that support local programs for

students who are not seeking a college degree.

• Maintains funding for Pell Grants at the maximum amount of $6,335. Unlike prior years

under Democrat control, the bill does not raid Pell Grant surplus balances to pay for other

non-education spending.

• Reduces funding for the Office for Civil Rights by 25% from the FY23 enacted level.

Department of Health and Human Services

Provides a discretionary total of $103.3 billion to the Department of Health and Human Services

(HHS), which is $14 billion (12%) below the FY23 enacted level and $25.9 billion below the

President’s Budget Request.

• Eliminates Family Planning (Title X) grants, along with unauthorized teen pregnancy

prevention programs that encourage teenagers as young as 13 to have “safe sex.”

Updated: July 13, 2023

• Reduces funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by $1.6 billion

(18%).

o Continues support for core public health programs.

o Eliminates many controversial programs, such as climate change initiatives and

research on firearms.

• Provides $43 billion to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is $3.8 billion below

the FY23 enacted level, and reduces funding for the Office of the Director, the National

Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the new ARPA-H program, which already

has $1.5 billion available in unspent funding.

o Fully supports basic biomedical research investigating cures for cancers, Alzheimer’s

disease, other chronic diseases, and rare diseases.

• Maintains funding for substance abuse and mental health programs, including support for an

effective opioid response, while eliminating ineffective and unproven programs.

• Eliminates the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality since these research functions

can be performed by other agencies at HHS.

• Reduces funding for programs that support unaccompanied alien children to disincentivize

families and teens from paying to transport them or their children illegally across the

southern border.

• Maintains funding at the FY23 enacted levels for programs for certain vulnerable

populations, such as Americans with disabilities, older Americans, and foster children.

• Maintains funding at $8 billion for Child Care and Development Block Grants (CCDBG),

which provides vouchers for families to choose the child care setting of their choice.

Department of Labor

Provides a discretionary total of $9.8 billion to the Department of Labor, which is $4 billion

(29%) below the FY23 enacted level and $5.7 billion below the President’s Budget Request.

• Eliminates the Job Corps, Senior Community Service Employment Program, and Youth

Training programs.

• Reduces labor enforcement agencies by 18%, including the Occupational Safety and Health

Administration (OSHA), Wage and Hour Division, and Office of Federal Contract

Compliance Programs.

• Eliminates the International Labor Affairs Bureau and Women’s Bureau.

• Maintains funding to support training programs for our nation’s veterans.

Updated: July 13, 2023

Corporation for National and Community Service

Reduces funding by nearly 50% for the Corporation for National and Community Service.

• Eliminates the National Service Trust.

• Reduces funding for Americorps programs by 25%.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Requires the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to compete with other programs in the bill for

annual funding due to the end of the two-year advance funding status.

National Labor Relations Board

Reduces funding for the National Labor Relations Board by 33%.