“A study to improve rural health care in Maine is currently on ice.”

Augusta, Maine – Last week, Susan Collins voted against an amendment that would have reinstated medical research grants in Maine.

New reporting details how Collins voted against unfreezing NIH grants “including $323,000 to study rural health care in Maine and $1.5 million for the Mount Desert Island Biological Lab in Bar Harbor.”

Read more:

The American Journal News: Collins votes against restoring Maine’s NIH research grants
By Jesse Valentine
August 6, 2025

  • Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) voted against reinstating medical research grants in Maine, even after she urged the White House to restore some of them.

  • The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) froze $1.5 billion in National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants on Jan. 28, including $323,000 to study rural health care in Maine and $1.5 million for the Mount Desert Island Biological Lab in Bar Harbor.

  • “Here in Maine, we do first-class biomedical research that saves lives and produces new breakthroughs in cancer, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s,” Dr. Clifford Rosen wrote in the Portland Press Herald when the freeze was announced. “I can unequivocally state that loss of indirect revenues through these cuts will have a chilling effect on our Maine research enterprise.”

  • Some of these funds were awarded directly by NIH, while others were appropriated by Congress.

  • Multiple lawsuits have challenged the funding freeze, including one joined by Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey. In response, federal judges have ordered hundreds of research grants to be restored. The White House has complied with some of these rulings and appealed others, creating confusion over which grants are active and which remain on hold.

  • Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced an amendment to the 2026 budget aimed at fully restoring the frozen grants. Every Republican on the Appropriations Committee, including Collins, voted against it.

  • The Government Accountability Office has since determined that the Trump administration broke the law when it ordered the funding freeze.

  • She voted on Feb. 6 to confirm Vought as OMB Director, despite his being one of the authors of Project 2025, which explicitly called for NIH cuts.


 

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