Democrats grill Kennedy, Wright, Rollins on 2027 budget requests

Democratic lawmakers grilled major Trump administration officials in a series of congressional hearings Thursday, questioning the millions in federal program cuts proposed by the president's recent budget proposal. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, and Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright defended their agencies' respective budget requests for fiscal year 2027. Kennedy's appearance before the House Appropriations Committee lasted over four hours. He fielded questions on HHS's $111.1 billion request – a 12% funding decrease from last year – including its suggestion to completely eliminate the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program, as well as SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., told Kennedy in no uncertain terms that appropriators would not implement those and other proposed cuts into the fiscal year 2027 HHS-Labor-Education appropriations bill. "The President's budget proposes to cut funding for NIH research by $6 billion. We are not going to do that, I will just tell you that right now. You propose cutting CDC funding by 30%, we are not going to do that," DeLauro said. "None of these proposals makes Americans better off. All of them make it more expensive or more difficult for people to live their lives." Kennedy argued that the proposed changes "are designed to ensure that federal health dollars are spent more efficiently" and that the budget "recognizes that securing America's future requires sound fiscal management and responsible decisions about our priorities." He also highlighted key HHS actions taken during the second Trump administration, including initiating the first-ever federal studies on chronic disease, releasing updated Dietary Guidelines, promoting nutrition education in U.S. medical schools, phasing out petroleum-based dyes from the food supply, and cracking down on improper or fraudulent Medicaid payments. "If we are serious about fulfilling HHS's mission of enhancing and protecting the well-being of all Americans, we must embrace the bold innovation and direction championed by the President's Budget to Make America Healthy Again," Kennedy said in his written statement. The USDA's $20.8 billion budget request also cracks down on fraudulent entitlement program payments, Rollins told the committee in a separate hearing Thursday. The department prevented over $12 million in fraudulent SNAP transactions just last week, she said. Rollins also outlined USDA's recent work to address national security vulnerabilities in U.S. agriculture, slash food processing regulations, provide cash bailouts to struggling farmers, and combat pests like the New World screwworm. "It's no secret that upon my arrival we found a department significantly overstaffed, over budget, and supportive of extraneous diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and climate programs irrelevant to supporting an America First agricultural policy," Rollins wrote in her statement. "The prior Administration had been hiring and creating programs with no way to sustain them. The President's 2027 Budget continues to right-size this." Democrats, however, remained unimpressed, objecting to the budget slashing overall funding by 19% via proposed cuts to WIC; grants for rural businesses, community facilities, and university research grants; and the elimination of Food for Peace. "Frankly, it's a shocking slap in the face that demonstrates ignorance and indifference," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said. "Farmers are on the ropes, families can't afford food, and this budget throws our best tools to help them in a woodchipper." The Department of Energy's budget request was the only one that proposes a funding increase from last year to about $54 billion. In a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce hearing, Wright said DOE "continues to be focused on turning our nation's abundance of resources into affordable, reliable, and secure energy for all Americans." "The backbone of a strong energy economy is a secure, modernized, robust grid that reliably delivers an abundance of affordable energy," he added in his opening statement. "This budget is about unleashing American energy dominance. It's about powering our homes, our businesses, and our future with reliable sources that provide more energy, not less." The proposal includes $32.8 billion for nuclear security, $1.2 billion for AI supercomputers, $312 million for the Office of Petroleum Reserves, and hundreds of millions for coal plants, critical minerals production, and electric grid infrastructure. It also cancels over $15 billion in grants for renewable energy infrastructure and $1.1 billion in grants for climate and renewable energy research, among other cuts to programs Democrats support. Democratic committee members, including Ranking Member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., condemned the cuts as well as the current conflict in Iran that has increased energy prices for Americans. "The Trump Administration's energy policy, Secretary Wright, has been an absolute failure," Pallone said. "DOE has attacked energy efficiency standards, cancelled or delayed clean energy projects, and slowed down important cost-saving programs like the Home Rebates program and the Weatherization Assistance Program." Wright defended the budget, arguing that the Democrats have pursued an unrealistic energy security strategy that has driven up electricity prices during the previous Biden administration. "There has been a political, and really an anti-mathematical desire to put intermittent, unreliable resources onto our grid," Wright added. "And everywhere their penetration gets high, the prices get more expensive, the grid gets less reliable, and the subsidies that go into it undermine the economics of the reliable sources." Though U.S. lawmakers take agency budget requests into account, the normally bipartisan nature of the appropriations process often results in budgets that differ significantly from the administration's requests. House appropriators will begin marking up the first of the 12 annual appropriations bills Friday and continue to hear from agency officials next week.