"The undersigned 139 members of the CDC Coalition and other supporting state, national and academic organizations urge you to work in a bipartisan manner to quickly finalize the FY 2024 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies appropriations bill with the highest possible level of funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Earlier this year, our coalition wrote to the leaders of the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations subcommittees urging them to provide at least $11.581 billion for CDC in FY 2024. While we understand that the debt ceiling agreement from earlier this year has limited the resources available to the Appropriations Committees since our original request, we continue to urge you to prioritize CDC funding and to oppose the inclusion of any cuts or partisan policy riders related to any of the agency’s programs. It is essential that Congress fully finalize the FY 2024 process and avoid the extremely damaging sequestration cuts that would undermine nondefense discretionary programs, including those at CDC. Due to years of underfunding, many CDC programs have not received the resources that are needed to address the many health challenges we face as a nation, resulting in many of CDC’s most effective prevention programs not reaching all states and communities."
