{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://harris.house.gov/media/in-the-news/lab-congress-lawmaker-wages-solo-fight-shake-nih", "From the Lab to Congress: A Lawmaker Wages a Solo Fight to Shake Up the NIH", "2017-06-08", "2017", "2017-06", "Republican", "House", "MD", "Andy Harris", "H001052", "harris.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON \u2014 The \u201ctelephone\u201d town hall began as most do.\nThere was an early question from a constituent about the financial solvency of Social Security, another about the recent passage of a bill\u00a0to repeal the Affordable Care Act, then a pointed query as to why the telephone town hall was a telephone town hall and not an in-person one.\nIn his responses, Rep. Andy Harris, sitting in an office that at first glance looked almost too ordinarily Republican \u2014 a carved wooden elephant, a metallic elephant, a pair of glass elephants painted in stars and stripes, and a portrait of Ronald Reagan \u2014 nearly fell into a script that this year has become familiar for members of Congress.\nBut then another voice crackled through an aide\u2019s speakerphone.\n\u201cI\u2019m 28 years old, I\u2019m a stage 4 colon cancer patient, and I am being treated at Johns Hopkins,\u201d a woman said. \u201cI read recently that \u2026 you are in favor of NIH cuts to institutions\u00a0that use NIH funds for operational costs, or indirect costs.\u201d\nHow, she asked, could Hopkins researchers afford to keep the lights on if many of their overhead expenditures were no longer funded by the NIH?\nHarris, a fourth-term congressman from Maryland, wished her well in her treatment, then dove into a question he felt uniquely qualified to answer.\n\u201cWe need to look at indirect costs,\u201d Harris replied, \u201cbecause we could probably fund 6,000 more research projects if we just brought the indirect costs paid by the federal taxpayer down to the levels that are paid by, you know, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.\u201d\nHarris is without question deeply knowledgeable on NIH issues. He is a former Johns Hopkins research physician whose work the agency funded for a decade. One study, on the \u201ccerebrovascular effects of intravenous dopamine infusions in fetal sheep,\u201d is published\u00a0in the Journal of Applied Physiology. He has also kept a close eye on the federal government\u2019s research arm.\nBut in the months following President Trump\u2019s inauguration, he has pursued what is perhaps an unexpected mission given his background: changing the way the NIH spends its money.\nHarris has proven to be one of the White House\u2019s few outspoken allies in its fight to shake up the agency, though even he differs from the White House in terms of an endgame. Both want to slash NIH payments for indirect expenses, which many scientists and university administrators say could irreparably damage their broader research funding framework.\nBut while the White House wants to fund the same amount of research with less money \u2014 Trump\u2019s budget outline\u00a0in May included \u201can indirect cost rate for NIH grants that will be capped at 10 percent of total research\u201d \u2014 Harris wants to maintain the agency\u2019s overall budget and use the savings to fund thousands more research projects.\n\u201cI was a physician scientist,\u201d Harris said in an interview with STAT. \u201cThat was my background. I was an academic physician, did both clinical and basic science research \u2014 so I think there\u2019s a role for the federal government and a role for the United States in biomedical research. I want to get that right.\u201d\nIn Congress, however, his is largely a solo fight. Harris was the only lawmaker to side with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price on the issue of indirect costs during a March budget hearing, when Price used the issue to justify a proposed $5.8 billion cut\u00a0to the agency in 2018. Last year, the NIH awarded $6.4 billion for indirect costs at research institutions.\nHe has also voiced skepticism on how the NIH spends its money generally, lamenting that too little is used directly to fund research projects. When the White House first proposed the cut to the 2018 budget, Democrats cried foul. Republicans, by and large, were quieter but no less resolute in their opposition, and shot down an additional request to cut $1.2 billion from the agency\u2019s 2017 spending.\nBut when the House\u2019s appropriations health subcommittee invited NIH Director Francis Collins\u00a0to testify last month, it was only Harris who took an adversarial tone with Collins.\n\u201cIt sounds like there\u2019s a different standard for the American taxpayer,\u201d he said to Collins at one point.\nTogether, Harris and Price have driven the NIH funding conversation as the 2018 budget process continues to play out, and the congressman could be helpful to the administration on other issues. Their comments on research funding paint a picture of what the agency could look like in the future with Harris at the helm, thought to be a possibility in January as Trump mulled whether to keep Collins.\nHarris has filed a bill that would prevent universities that have declared themselves \u201csanctuary campuses,\u201d pledging non-cooperation with federal immigration law enforcement, from receiving federal funds for indirect research costs.\nAnd while he did not sign on a recent letter from 41 anti-abortion Republican colleagues asking the president not to re-appoint Collins because his views regarding embryonic stem cell research and human cloning \u201care not life-affirming,\u201d Harris was quickly able to rattle off a list of, in his view, moral trouble spots inside the agency.\n\u201cThere are several issues, potentially, that could cross ethical boundaries at the NIH,\u201d Harris said. \u201cThe \u2018three-parent embryos,\u2019 though that\u2019s mostly the FDA; the human-animal chimera experiments; there\u2019s embryonic stem cell research; there\u2019s research using fetal tissue.\u201d\nHarris suggested that such research should be funded exclusively by non-federal sources. But he doesn\u2019t think states should step in to fund research for which there is no ethical consensus. In 2005, in fact, Harris worked in the Maryland legislature to unite Republicans and some conservative Democrats in a filibuster over state funding for embryonic stem cell research. \u201cFor states to delve into this is very much beyond the role of state government,\u201d he told the Washington Post\u00a0then.\nHe also wrote in January that a House investigation\u00a0had uncovered \u201cshameful practices\u201d with regard to, among other topics, the NIH\u2019s procurement of fetal tissue for research. \u201cLaws were being skirted,\u201d Harris said, adding that he had brought up his concerns with Collins directly.\nHarris was previously seen as a candidate\u00a0to lead the NIH, and in the interview with STAT, he said \u201cif the president thinks I can help him, I\u2019d be more than willing to discuss that at an appropriate time.\u201d\nBut with Tuesday\u2019s news that Collins will remain in office, the conversation about a potential NIH leadership role became one for the future. Harris for now seems content to make the 60-mile Capitol commute from his home in Cockeysville, Md., each day Congress is in session, and to continue practicing medicine \u2014 he is an anesthesiologist with a subspecialty in obstetrics \u2014 at Easton Memorial Hospital in Maryland, just often enough to keep his medical license.\nThat\u2019s not to say that in his current role he won\u2019t tout his unique expertise.\nWhile some colleagues have found Harris willing to collaborate on controversial legislation, some Democrats say they have found it difficult to work with Harris even on a committee whose debates are largely amicable.\nOn some issues, there has been bipartisan cooperation. Harris and Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, a Democrat, later this year plan to reintroduce a bill to streamline the Justice Department\u2019s approval process for researchers hoping to work with marijuana\u00a0to measure its efficacy as a treatment for some medical conditions. Blumenauer, a proponent of relaxing marijuana laws, and Harris, who has largely opposed medical marijuana use, are likely expecting different research outcomes. But Harris said he is open to either verdict, so long as it\u2019s based on new, scientifically gathered data.\nA belief in evidence-based policymaking, however, may be in the eye of the beholder. Harris, during the town hall, joined the growing chorus of GOP voices that have questioned the value of projections published by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, long viewed as an objective body that helps legislators evaluate their own work. But especially with regard to its projections for the recently passed American Health Care Act, Harris has become disillusioned.\n\u201cYou must have more faith in the CBO than I did,\u201d he said in response to one question, \u201cbecause the CBO underestimated by at least 50 percent the number of people, when it scored the initial Affordable Care Act, who would be on [its exchanges]. It underestimated the cost of the initial act.\u201d\nAt the same time, Harris said, \u201cthe CBO score was no surprise to anybody\u201d \u2014 by removing the ACA\u2019s individual mandate, it followed naturally that fewer people would buy insurance.\nThat stance \u2014 and the one on indirect costs \u2014 show if nothing else that Harris is not one to shy away from unpopular positions.\n\u201cHe\u2019s not one who just loves to speak out,\u201d said North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, the chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, of which Harris is a member. \u201cBut when he speaks out, people listen \u2026 and he\u2019s also willing to take very difficult stands, being on the Appropriations Committee.\u201d\nYet on the issue of indirect costs, Harris has failed to generate much traction \u2014 Democrats uniformly oppose it, and Republican influencers seem to find the idea half-baked at best.\nMany in Washington would be surprised if Congress passes a full budget in September, in any case. And even if there is a budget, said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the Republican who chairs the appropriations health subcommittee, 2018 is too quick a target for a major change to the NIH\u2019s funding structure.\n\u201cAnything we did, we would phase in over time,\u201d Cole said. \u201cBut I\u2019m not prepared at this point to say that we\u2019re doing things wrong. I think it\u2019s an interesting question to be discussed.\u201d\nCole, who called Harris \u201cone of the most gifted members of the committee,\u201d did agree with Harris that if any cap on indirect costs is instituted, the savings should go toward funding additional research instead of padding the federal bottom line.\nBut the argument that such a cut would not diminish the quality of research \u201chas not been made very well,\u201d Cole said, who added that he heard that case made mainly by budget hawks and not academics.\n\u201cThe people that are making it to me are not scientists or researchers or people that run [research facilities],\u201d Cole continued.\nAll of them, of course, except for one.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://harris.house.gov/media/in-the-news/lab-congress-lawmaker-wages-solo-fight-shake-nih"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.021950040012598, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}