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February 6, 2026 | Vol. MMXXVI | Issue 147 |
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In this edition:
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Appropriations |
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Last week, the Senate made changes to the House-passed appropriations bills by splitting off the Department of Homeland Security bill from the other five in the package. The bill then had to go back to the House for a new vote and did not pass into law by the January 30 deadline. This caused a short, partial government shutdown for a few days.
On February 3, the House passed the Senate’s amended appropriations package. This includes the Labor-Health and Human Services-Education funding bill. The President signed the appropriations bills into law later that day. The new continuing resolution (short-term funding bill) will temporarily fund DHS at its current levels until February 13.
Next, Congress will work on Fiscal Year 2027 appropriations. |
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Key Takeaways |
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AUCD Centers and Programs did not experience any funding cuts.
UCEDDs: level funded at $43,119,000
LENDs: not listed specifically, but the Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities line item (which LENDs fall under) has a $1 million increase to $57,344,000. We assume LENDs are at least level funded based on this information.
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (where the IDDRCs are housed): increased from the last LHHS appropriations at $1,759,078,000 to $1,769,078,000. This does not give us specific information about the funding of IDDRCs specifically but does show ongoing Congressional support for them through the increased funding toward NICHD.
You can read more in this previous issue of Disability Policy News.
Senator Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN) Ensuring Access to Medicaid Buy-in Programs Act (S.3690) was included in the Labor HHS appropriations package. People with disabilities who are employed lose their Medicaid benefits when they turn 65 unless they retire. Medicaid “buy-in” allows workers with disabilities access to Medicaid community-based services that are not available through other insurers (for example, HCBS). Learn more about Medicaid buy-in in this Q&A from the Department of Labor. |
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Plain Language |
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At the end of last year, Congress passed a continuing resolution (also called a CR), which is a funding bill that makes sure the government has enough money for a few more months. This CR funded the government until the end of January, so Congress had to figure out how they wanted to fund the government after that. This process is called "appropriations." Appropriations means money that is set aside by Congress for a particular use.
Congress has recently passed new legislation to fund the government.
In January, the House passed appropriations bills. Then it went to the Senate. Last week, the Senate made a change to those appropriations bills: they separated the Department of Homeland Security bill from the other five bills in the appropriations package and made it a short-term spending bill. The whole package of bills then had to go back to the House for a new vote and did not pass into law by the January 30 deadline. This caused a short, partial government shutdown for a few days. This means that some parts of the government stopped working.
On February 3, the House passed the Senate’s updated appropriations package. This includes a bill to fund the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, and the Department of Health and Human Services. This bill is sometimes called "Labor-H." The President signed all of these appropriations bills into law later that day. He also signed a new continuing resolution (short-term funding bill) that will fund the Department of Homeland Security until February 13.
AUCD Programs received the usual amount of money in this bill.
UCEDDs: level funded at $43,119,000
Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities (which includes LENDs): $57,344,000
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (which includes IDDRCs): $1,769,078,000
The bill funds many other disability programs at the usual amount of money as well. You can read more in this previous issue of Disability Policy News.
Next, Congress will work on Fiscal Year 2027 appropriations.
Senator Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN) Ensuring Access to Medicaid Buy-in Programs Act (S.3690) was included in the Labor-H appropriations package. This bill would help more people with disabilities who are working get Medicaid. Some people have to stop getting Medicaid when they turn 65, but this legislation would help them keep their Medicaid. |
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Senate HELP Committee Hearing |
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On February 3, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee held a hearing entitled “Modernizing the National Institutes of Health: Faster Discoveries, More Cures” with National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya testifying. Members from both parties discussed the large funding cuts and grant cancelations at NIH that have affected clinical trials and biomedical research. |
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Key Takeaways |
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HELP Chair Bill Cassidy (R-LA) referenced the cancelation of $500 million in contracts that funded mRNA vaccine research and criticized Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s vaccine policy. He pressed Dr. Bhattacharya about the measles outbreaks across the country and criticized the Department’s decision to recommend separate doses of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, saying it would create distrust of the vaccine and fewer immunizations.
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HELP Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-VT) pressed Dr. Bhattacharya on whether or not he believed that vaccines caused autism, a damaging myth that Secretary Kennedy and many in his HHS have proliferated. Dr. Bhattacharya said that he had not seen any study that proves that vaccines cause autism.
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Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) asked about the new slate of Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) members, many of whom have espoused anti-vaccine beliefs. She emphasized that Secretary Kennedy and this Administration have done harm to autistic people and their families by relitigating debunked connections between vaccines and autism. Dr. Bhattacharya referenced the work of the new NIH Autism Data Science Initiative in discovering the potential causes of autism. Senator Jim Banks (R-IN) also asked about the rise in autism diagnoses.
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Senator John Hickenlooper (D-CO) asked about mRNA research grant cancelations and overall concern that public trust in vaccines is being damaged with the overhaul of the childhood vaccine schedule. He also spoke about the importance of the INCLUDE (INvestigation of Co-occurring conditions across the Lifespan to Understand Down syndromE) Project.
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Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) also pressed the Director on recent changes to the childhood vaccine schedule and whether or not he recommended “any type of plan to measure the impact of the changes to this childhood vaccine schedule on health outcomes.” Senator Blunt Rochester referenced a memo from Director Bhattacharya and other HHS leaders that proposed a revised childhood vaccine schedule to more closely mirror the vaccine recommendations in peer developed countries like Denmark and Japan. Senator Blunt Rochester asked whether Dr. Bhattacharya and other HHS officials considered “the unique patterns and causes of disease in each region like the U.S. versus Europe” when they made their recommendations. Senator Cassidy agreed with this point and expressed concern that the decision to change the immunization guidance was ill-advised.
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Plain Language |
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On February 3, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee held a hearing about the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya was the only witness at the hearing. This means Members of the committee gave remarks about the NIH and what it is doing under the Trump Administration. They asked NIH Director Bhattacharya questions. Democratic and Republican Members both talked about the big funding cuts at NIH. They said that NIH had canceled a lot of grants and a lot of people who do research had to stop because they didn't have the money to do it. This is bad because research into diseases like cancer are really important. This research could find cures for diseases, so they need to be able to keep working.
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HELP Chair Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) talked about mRNA vaccine research. Vaccines are shots doctors give people to keep people from getting sick. mRNA is a specific kind of vaccine that can keep a lot of people safe from diseases. The Senator said that Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. had canceled $500 million that was for mRNA research. Senator Cassidy was worried that this would be bad for people in the long term because we won't be able to do really important vaccine research. Vaccine research could give us new information about how to keep people safe from diseases.
Senator Cassidy also said that he was against Secretary Kennedy's vaccine policy because Secretary Kennedy is telling the public that vaccines aren't safe. Senator Cassidy is worried that people will stop taking vaccines, which could mean that a lot of people could get sick and die from diseases. This includes the measles disease, which has recently killed people. Senator Cassidy told Dr. Bhattacharya that he did not agree with HHS's decision to change its advice on the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. HHS decided to separate that vaccine into three separate vaccines for each disease, instead of one vaccine. Senator Cassidy said that decision didn't make sense and he believes that it will make people trust the vaccine less, and fewer people would get the vaccine.
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HELP Ranking Member (second in command) Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) asked Dr. Bhattacharya to say whether or not he believed that vaccines cause autism. Senator Sanders said that Secretary Kennedy and many in his HHS have said this, even though it is not true. Dr. Bhattacharya said that he had not seen any study that proves that vaccines cause autism.
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Senator Maggie Hassan (D-New Hampshire) asked about the new people on the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC). The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) is a group in the government that helps the HHS Secretary make decisions about autism policy. This committee works with many people across the whole federal government to give out information about autism. Many of the new people on the IACC have said things about autism that aren't true. Some of them have said that vaccines or issues with the stomach cause autism. Some have advocated for treatments for autism that do not help autistic people.
Senator Hassan said that Secretary Kennedy and this Administration have done harm to autistic people and their families by bringing up beliefs that vaccines and autism are connected. Dr. Bhattacharya said that the new NIH Autism Data Science Initiative has started to do research into the potential causes of autism. Senator Jim Banks (R-Indiana) also asked about the fact that there are more people diagnosed with autism today than in the past. Diagnosed means someone is officially told by a doctor that they have a certain kind of disability.
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Senator John Hickenlooper (D-Colorado) also asked about mRNA research grant cancelations. He was worried that the public will trust vaccines less because Secretary Kennedy and other people in HHS are changing vaccine policy so much. He talked about the importance of a government program called the INCLUDE (INvestigation of Co-occurring conditions across the Lifespan to Understand Down syndromE) Project. This project is about researching the health needs of people with Down Syndrome.
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Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Delaware) told Director Bhattacharya that she was against the recent changes to the childhood vaccine schedule. The childhood vaccine schedule is a list of vaccines and when kids should get them. HHS has changed it so that fewer vaccines are on the list. Senator Blunt Rochester mentioned a new policy change from the President and HHS. This new policy changes the childhood vaccine schedule so it looks more like the childhood vaccine schedule in a few other countries. These countries usually recommend fewer vaccines for children. Senator Blunt Rochester asked whether Dr. Bhattacharya and other HHS officials did research into the differences between the U.S. and these other countries. She said the U.S. is very different from these countries, so it's a bad idea to copy what they are doing about vaccines. Senator Cassidy agreed with this point and said he thought the changes to vaccine policy were not good.
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Department of Education |
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On February 2, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report that details the costs and savings of the Trump Administration’s reductions in force (RIFs) at the Department of Education. The report, commissioned by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), revealed that the Administration’s efforts to cut the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) staff within the agency may have cost up to $38 million.
In March 2025, the Administration conducted a RIF that cut about half of OCR staff and closed seven of twelve regional offices. In June, a federal judge blocked those RIFs and forced the Department of Education to reinstate OCR employees, which included continuing to pay them. From mid-March to mid-December 2025, there were 247 OCR employees who were on administrative leave and not allowed to work but still being paid. This cost between $28.5 million and $38 million, according to GAO’s report. |
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Key Takeaways |
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Senator Sanders noted that during the 2025 government shutdown, the Administration proposed more layoffs at OCR, further cutting the Department’s capacity. While the Administration reinstated staff in December, GAO says that “from March to September, OCR resolved more than 7,000 discrimination complaints, but about 90% were resolved by the department dismissing the complaint, meaning staff received information from complainants but did not proceed to investigate.”
When parents or teachers advocate on behalf of students with disabilities, they can go to OCR for justice. If OCR is not operating at full capacity, students with disabilities and their families might continue to experience discrimination or inaccessibility at school without any solution to their problems. |
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Plain Language |
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On February 2, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report. The GAO is a government office that looks into what other government offices are doing and makes reports. Its new report is about what happened at the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in 2025 when many staff were fired and then rehired.
OCR is in charge of making sure students are being treated fairly. When a student with a disability is treated unfairly because of their disability, they go to OCR to get justice. It takes a lot of people to look into cases where there might be discrimination against someone with a disability. Discrimination means to treat someone badly because of who they are. The people who look into these cases are called investigators.
In March 2025, the Administration fired about half of the people who worked at OCR. This is called a reduction in force (RIF).
In June 2025, a judge said the Administration had to rehire those people.
The Administration told these people that they could not work, but they still had to pay them. From mid-March to mid-December 2025, there were 247 OCR employees who were not allowed to work but still being paid. This cost between $28.5 million and $38 million, according to GAO’s report.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) asked GAO to do the report. He said that during the 2025 government shutdown, the Administration tried to fire even more people at OCR. The Administration had to bring all those people back.
Another issue is that OCR dismissed most of the cases, which means it didn't do anything to solve the problems that people brought up. This is a problem because students with disabilities and their families aren't getting help with their issues. |
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New Legislation
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The Protecting Small Businesses from Predatory Website Lawsuits Act (H.R.7328)
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Introduced by Representative Sam Graves (R-MO)
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Would amend the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) so a civil lawsuit over website accessibility compliance cannot be filed until the owner/operator of the website is notified of their website’s noncompliance with ADA standards
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You can read Rep. Graves’ press release here.
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The ALS Better Care Act (H.R.7336) (S.3763)
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Introduced by Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
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Would expand access to specialized, multidisciplinary care for people living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at no cost by creating a supplemental, facility-based payment in Medicare for ALS-related services
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You can read Rep. Schakowsky’s press release here.
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The Prior Authorization Relief Act (S.3762)
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Introduced by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
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Would require the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to standardize prior authorization requirements across medicines and services in Medicare Advantage to allow patients to get care sooner and reduce providers’ administrative time
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You can read Senator Whitehouse’s press release here.
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Plain Language |
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There are a few new bills in the U.S. Congress.
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The Protecting Small Businesses from Predatory Website Lawsuits Act would change part of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that has to do with website accessibility. The bill would make sure the owner of a website is told that their website is not accessible before someone can file a lawsuit. A lawsuit is when someone brings an issue to a court or a judge to change it.
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The ALS Better Care Act would help more people get access to care for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) without having to pay through Medicare. ALS is a disease that makes it harder to people to use their muscles and gets worse as it goes on.
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The Prior Authorization Relief Act would require the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to change something called prior authorization. Prior authorization is when a health insurance company makes healthcare providers get special approval before they give some specific or expensive treatments, medications, or other healthcare.
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AUCD Story Collection |
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AUCD is collecting stories from the Network on a variety of topics to amplify the effects of this Administration on real people and our programs. If you have a story, we want to hear it.
We are interested in stories about:
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Medicaid and its impact on people's lives
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The impact of dismantling ACL
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The important work of UCEDDs, LENDs, IDDRCs, PNS’s, DD Councils, P&As
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The impact of zeroing out UCEDDs, LENDs, IDDRCs, PNS’s, DD Councils, P&As
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Impact of grants that are being cut
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Stories responding to RFK Jr.’s claims about autism or the autism registry
You can use this link to provide information and let us know if you are comfortable sharing your story with Members of Congress and their staff. |
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AUCD Policy Blog |
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AUCD invites Network members to fill out this form if you’re interested in writing for the AUCD policy blog. We are open to a variety of issues areas, and we will follow up with you as relevant issues come up that we’d like you to write about. Read past blog posts here. |
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Disability Policy for All with Liz |
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Join Liz on Instagram Reels, where she provides plain language updates on policy, highlighting current issues and hot topics in federal disability policy.
Liz Weintraub is AUCD's Senior Advocacy Specialist and the host of “Disability Policy for All with Liz.” She has extensive experience practicing leadership in self-advocacy and has held many board and advisory positions at state and national organizations, including the Council on Quality & Leadership (CQL) and the Maryland Developmental Disabilities Council.
Watch Liz’s most recent video on Executive Orders here. |
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Words to Know |
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Continuing resolution (CR)
A funding bill that makes sure the government has enough money for a few more weeks or months.
The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC)
IACC is a group in the government that helps the Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary make decisions about autism policy. This committee works with many people across the whole federal government to give out information about autism.
Government Accountability Office (GAO)
GAO is a government office that looks into what other government offices are doing and makes reports.
Office of Civil Rights (OCR)
The office that is in charge of making sure students are being treated fairly. When a student with a disability is treated unfairly because of their disability, they go to OCR to get justice.
Discrimination
To treat someone badly because of who they are.
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