White House Pushes to Save Key Covid Programs in Debt Ceiling Talks

The White House is seeking to preserve funding for key components of the federal coronavirus response in debt limit negotiations with House Republicans, according to senior Biden administration officials familiar with the talks.

Administration officials are trying to protect roughly $5 billion in funding for a program to develop the next generation of coronavirus vaccines and treatments. They are also looking to preserve more than $1 billion in funding for an initiative to offer free coronavirus shots to uninsured Americans, according to the officials.

The funds that the administration is using for the two programs have already been approved by Congress, but they are now potentially in jeopardy because Republicans are seeking to extract spending cuts from the Biden administration as a condition for raising the nation’s borrowing cap.

As one component of a debt limit deal, House Republicans want to reclaim tens of billions of dollars in unspent funds from Covid-19 relief legislation. It was unclear which funds might be clawed back as part of a deal, though the administration and congressional negotiators have found some agreement on the topic. President Biden said this month that rescinding unspent coronavirus funds was “on the table.”

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Some White House officials view the vaccine development program, called Project NextGen, as the most important Covid measure to protect in the debt ceiling talks. It is loosely modeled on the Trump administration’s vaccine development program, known as Operation Warp Speed, which marshaled a series of effective shots to Americans in record time.

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