Sen. Susan Collins blasted the Trump administration’s newly implemented cap on indirect costs related to grants issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Monday — becoming the first Republican lawmaker to publicly take issue with the 47th president’s budget-slashing initiatives.
The NIH announced Friday that it was limiting the amount of grant money that can go toward expenses like overhead to 15% of each award, estimating that the move could save $4 billion a year annually.
“I oppose the poorly conceived directive imposing an arbitrary cap on the indirect costs that are part of NIH grants and negotiated between the grant recipient and NIH,” Collins (R-Maine) said in a Monday statement, indicating she had gotten an earful over the weekend from institutions in her home state.
“This morning, I called Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services, to express my strong opposition to these arbitrary cuts in funding for vital research at our Maine institutions, which are known for their excellence,” she added.
Collins, 72, who has not said whether she will vote to confirm Kennedy, claimed that the nominee assured her that he “will re-examine this initiative that was implemented prior to his confirmation.”
Some research firms had billed Uncle Sam an extra 60% of their grant awards for indirect costs, while a recent memo suggested that the average hovered between 27% and 28%.
NIH also estimated that about $9 billion of the $35 billion in grants distributed in fiscal year 2023 went to non-research categories like personnel, accounting, maintenance, and equipment.
Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee and is expected to face a tough re-election fight in 2026, expressed concerns that the cap would “in some cases” be applied “retroactively to existing grants” and “be devastating” for medical progress.
“There is no investment that pays greater dividends to American families than our investment in biomedical research,” she added on Monday.
The NIH’s cap on indirect costs was challenged in a lawsuit filed by 22 states in Boston federal court on Monday, arguing that “the effects of the Rate Change Notice will be immediate and devastating” and bring about the “suspension of clinical trials, disruption of ongoing research programs, and laboratory programs.”
The Trump administration has embarked on a crusade against government waste via Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Collins has praised Musk in the past, saying during a No Labels event late last year: “I had an excellent, 70-minute meeting with Elon Musk and I was very impressed. I think having this outside perspective from Elon … may well come up with some very valuable ideas.”
Collins also voted last week to confirm Russ Vought, an advocate of Trump’s waste-eliminating agenda and ally of Musk, to take the reins of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
