Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2027

Key Points

• This massive spending bill sets fiscal year 2027 funding for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. It covers everything from job training and NIH research to Head Start, Pell Grants, and Medicaid, totaling hundreds of billions of dollars.
• Starting July 2027, new undergraduate students would no longer receive subsidized federal student loans. Instead, they could borrow the same total amount through unsubsidized loans, meaning they would be responsible for all interest that accrues while in school.
• The bill blocks all federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, offices, training, and anything promoting Critical Race Theory across Labor, HHS, and Education. It also bans funding for programs that allow transgender girls to compete on female sports teams.
• Schools receiving federal funds must have policies requiring teachers to notify parents about a student's gender identity. Schools that withhold such information could lose federal funding, with narrow exceptions for court orders or abuse investigations.
• The bill bans funding for OSHA's proposed heat illness prevention standard, blocks any funding for gender-affirming medical interventions, prohibits research using human fetal tissue from abortions, and defunds Planned Parenthood through a provision targeting specific organizations that perform abortions.
• NIH receives substantial funding across its institutes, including $7.46 billion for the National Cancer Institute and $6.6 billion for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The bill caps indirect cost rates at 30% for wealthy universities subject to the endowment tax.