AUCD’s Community Inclusion Team supports the University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) Network in partnership with the Administration for Community Living.
AUCD’s Maternal and Child Health Engagement supports the Autism CARES Programs, including LEND and DBP Programs.
AUCD’s Public Health Team works to create health promotion and public health efforts that include people with disabilities.
AUCD Emerging Leaders are a part of a community that includes trainees, early career professionals, self-advocates, and family members from AUCD member Centers and Programs.
AUCD's Disability Policy News (DPN) is a weekly newsletter highlighting federal policy issues affecting people with disabilities and their families. DPN features updates in plain language and action steps that people can take to educate policymakers. DPN is published every Friday.
In this edition:
On Thursday, July 31, the Senate Committee on Appropriations
held a markup for the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (LHHS)
Fiscal Year 2026 Appropriations bill (S.2587). Bill markup is the process by which a bill
gets voted out of committee. Substantial bipartisan work went into this bill,
and it passed out of committee 26-3. The legislation funds the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services (HHS) at $116.6 billion—a $446 million increase in
discretionary funds. You can read the Senate’s bill text and report language.
On Tuesday, September 2, the House Appropriations Committee
held a Subcommittee Markup for its Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related
Agencies bill for FY26. The bill was passed out of committee 11-7,
along party lines—only Republicans voted to advance it. The legislation
appropriates $108.6 billion for HHS, a decrease of $6.8 billion. You can find
bill text here—report language has not yet been made public as of
this writing, so we don’t have some specific line-item numbers yet, like we do
with the Senate bill.
Now that the Senate bill has passed out of committee, it
will have to be debated on the floor and put to a vote. The next step for the
House bill is for it to be marked up in the full House Appropriations
Committee. Some reporting says this may happen on September 9;
Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), chair of the Labor-HHS-Education subcommittee,
says he tentatively expects the bill to be approved in full committee on that
day.
Funding to keep the government open runs out on September
30. To avoid a government shutdown, Congress must approve a new government
funding package for FY26 or pass a continuing resolution (CR) that keeps the
government operating on current funding levels for a specified period. The
timeline is very tight, and there may not be enough time to pass a full
spending bill before the deadline.
It’s worth mentioning that the Senate’s legislation is
bipartisan, while the House’s is not. House Appropriations LHHS Subcommittee
members were divided on this bill—Democrats decried the bill, while Republicans celebrated its alignment with
President Trump’s agenda. The Republican summary of the bill is here, and the Democratic summary is here. The House bill makes more than $500 million in
cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and nutrition benefits, and it cuts funding for
education, health care, and labor programs by $24 billion. The Senate bill
increases funding for HHS, while the House cuts it. This difference could make
it harder for the Senate and House to agree on LHHS appropriations legislation,
making it less likely that a full appropriations bill will be passed by
September 30—this increases the likelihood of a CR.
Both the Senate and House rejected the President’s Budget
proposal to eliminate funding for the University Centers for Excellence in
Developmental Disabilities (UCEDDs) and make substantial changes to HHS
departments and agencies, which is a positive sign.
More information:
We need to thank Members of Congress for supporting UCEDDs
and other programs in the markup but make sure they know we want a full
appropriations bill passed to maintain funding for HHS and our Network Centers
and Programs.
Action Item - Tell your Member of Congress to safeguard UCEDD funding in FY26 appropriations. AUCD has a tool to protect funding for the University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities! Take 2 minutes to act now: Campaign to Safeguard UCEDD Funding. Share the campaign widely, and encourage families, students, staff, alumni, and community partners to join you. Post the campaign on social media, share that you participated, tag AUCD, and use hashtags #SaveUCEDDs and #DisabilityAdvocacy.
Important Note: This campaign does include direct requests for funding and constitutes lobbying. Please consider this when choosing the email address or list you use to send messages.
Congress needs to pass a government spending bill to make
sure the government is funded in 2026. Before Congress can vote on that bill,
committees in the House and Senate need to first review it. This is a process
called a markup and the committees are called appropriations committees.
Appropriations means money that is set aside by Congress for a particular use.
The appropriations process happens once a year. Money is sometimes requested by
the President’s Administration or by Congress for a specific use.
Right now, Congress is in the middle of its appropriations
process for 2026 funding. The Senate and the House both have committees that
work on appropriations. Within those committees, they have special groups
(called subcommittees) that focus on health, work, and education laws. The
Senate appropriations subcommittee passed their 2026 appropriations bill in
July, which gives more money than usual to the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS), including programs in the AUCD Network: University Centers for
Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDDs), Leadership Education in
Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) Programs, and Intellectual
and Developmental Disabilities Research Centers (IDDRCs). The Senate bill was
bipartisan, which means it was supported by both Democrats and Republicans. We
know more details about the Senate’s bill because they released a report that
has more specific funding amounts for programs. The House subcommittee that
works on health, work, and education passed their bill this past week. They cut
a lot of funding for programs in HHS. The House bill was passed by only
Republicans, so it was not bipartisan.
Both the Senate and House rejected the President’s Budget
proposal to get rid of funding for UCEDDs and make big changes to HHS
departments and agencies, which is a good sign.
There is still more work to do:
Watch this Disability Policy for All with Liz video on updates on
the FY26 appropriations process.
Action Item - Tell your Member of Congress to make sure UCEDDs have funding in FY26 appropriations. AUCD has a tool to protect funding for the University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities! Take 2 minutes to act now: Campaign to Keep UCEDD Funding Safe. Share the campaign, and invite families, students, staff, alumni, and community partners to join you. Post the campaign on social media, share that you participated, tag AUCD, and use hashtags #SaveUCEDDs and #DisabilityAdvocacy.
View past issues of Disability Policy News to learn more about AUCD's policy priorities and how you can engage in policy actions.
