Biden-⁠Harris Administration Applauds Passage of Bipartisan Funding Bill

Today, the Biden-Harris Administration applauded Congress for passing the bipartisan funding bill, which will support research on cancer and other diseases; reform the Electoral Count Act; invest in child care, education, and childhood nutrition; strengthen health care; accelerate deployment of clean energy; make our communities safer; deliver for our veterans; support the Ukrainian people; help communities recover from devastating natural disasters; and more.
 
The legislation comes at a moment when the President’s economic plan is showing results and giving the American people more breathing room—with inflation slowing, gas prices dropping, manufacturing booming, wages rising, and jobs growing. At the same time, the President’s economic strategy has helped produce a historic decline in the deficit, demonstrating that we can invest in the middle class in a fiscally responsible way. Under the President’s leadership, the deficit fell by more than $1.4 trillion last year—the largest one-year decrease in the federal deficit in American history—building on more than $350 billion in deficit reduction the previous year.
 
Key Administration priorities in the legislation include:

• Advancing Cutting-Edge Medical Research. The bipartisan funding bill includes $1.5 billion—an increase of $500 million above the FY 2022 enacted level—for the President’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), a historic initiative to help improve the health of all Americans. ARPA-H will help drive transformational innovation in health technologies and speed health breakthroughs to prevent, detect, and treat diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes. The bill also includes a $385 million increase for the National Cancer Institute and funds the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot at the full, authorized level.
• Protecting Our Democracy. At a time when our democracy remains under threat, as we saw on January 6^th, the bipartisan funding bill includes the Electoral Count Reform Act—a vital piece of legislation that helps shore up our democracy by strengthening the integrity of the process of appointing Presidential electors and of tallying those electors’ votes.
• Investing in Education and Child Care. The bipartisan funding bill includes an $850 million increase for Title I, which serves 25 million students in nearly 90 percent of school districts. The bill also makes college more affordable by increasing the maximum Pell Grant by $500. It also includes more than $8 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant—an increase of nearly $2 billion above the FY 2022 level.
• Making Our Communities Safer. President Biden knows what works to make our communities safer: investing in community policing and crime prevention. The bipartisan funding bill includes a total of $663 million for the COPS Office—a $151 million increase above the FY 2022 enacted level—as well as $50 million in Community Violence Intervention programs at the Department of Justice. The bill also includes $700 million for the Violence Against Women Act, the highest funding level in history.
• Delivering for Veterans. Earlier this year, the President signed into law the PACT Act—the most significant expansion of benefits and services for toxic exposed veterans in more than 30 years. To help deliver on the law’s promise, the bipartisan funding bill includes $5 billion in dedicated funding for the Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund.
• Supporting the Ukrainian People. President Biden and bipartisan members of Congress have been clear that the United States is committed to continuing to support the people of Ukraine as they defend their sovereignty and democracy. To continue delivering on that commitment, the bipartisan funding bill includes more than $44 billion in security, economic, and humanitarian assistance that will support the Ukrainian people as they continue to stand resolute in the face of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
• Helping Communities Recover from Natural Disasters. The President is committed to helping impacted States, Tribes, and Territories recover from recent extreme weather events and natural disasters. The bipartisan funding bill includes $27 billion to support response, recovery, and rebuilding efforts in Florida and Puerto Rico due to Hurricanes Ian and Fiona, and to help additional communities recover from several other disasters in recent months.
• Prioritizing Mental Health Care. The bipartisan funding bill includes a significant increase of $395 million to support the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
• Protecting Pregnant Workers. The bipartisan funding bill will provide basic, long overdue protections to ensure that pregnant workers and job applicants are not fired or otherwise discriminated against, or denied reasonable accommodations that allow them to work.
• Improving Health Outcomes in Indian Country. The bipartisan funding bill provides advance appropriations for the agency for FY 2024 for the first time in history. This ensures more stable, predictable funding, and will improve access to high quality health care, address health inequities, and modernize IHS’s electronic health records system.
• Advancing Science and Tackling the Climate Crisis. The bipartisan funding bill includes historic increases for science and investments to tackle the climate crisis and promote equity. The bill includes more than $19 billion in science appropriations that were authorized in the CHIPS and Science Act, including $8.1 billion for DOE’s Office of Science, a $625 million increase over FY 2022, as well as a $1 billion increase for the National Science Foundation. The bill also includes increased funding for deploying clean energy; protecting public health, clean air and water; and advancing environmental justice.

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