922: 2025 Preparedness Summit, View from Washington, D.C. Report

JANSON SILVERS: 

This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Friday, June 6, 2025. I'm Janson Silvers. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

NATE WEED: 

Interestingly, in many cases, ASPR's weaknesses are the strengths of CDC, and CDC's weaknesses are the strengths of ASPR, and in that space really looking for opportunities to knit together the strengths of both organizations.

SILVERS: 

ASTHO recently facilitated a conversation at the 2025 Preparedness Summit between Directors of Public Health Preparedness, the CDC, and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, or ASPR. Nate Weed, with the Washington State Department of Health, says important questions were asked.

WEED: 

What do we need to do to build the relationship between the state and federal level in order to also find those, those economies of scale, those efficiencies, or those strategies that really help us collectively do a better job at responding to emergencies.

SILVERS: 

Weed says, many challenges still remain.

WEED: 

I think the other big challenge is that we're just in a time of a lot of uncertainty and a lot of unclarity. So, that ambiguity is really causing, I think, some interesting dynamics, certainly at the state level. I trust that it's probably causing similar dynamics at the federal and local levels.

SILVERS: 

Much more information on the 2025 Preparedness Summit is online. We have a link in the show notes to learn more.

D.C. continues to heat up, both in temperature and in activity, as budgets, reconciliation, and rescissions are hot topics this week. Luckily, ASTHO's senior vice president of government affairs and public relations, joins us to break it all down in this week's View from Washington, D.C. report.

Good morning, Carolyn. I know we have a lot to talk about today, so let's jump right in. The White House released more information about the FY26 budget. Talk us through that.

CAROLYN MULLEN: 

So, the White House released what's known as congressional justifications, only for some agencies, and in our line of work, congressional justifications are the equivalent of the Bible. We use it a lot to justify funding recommendations to Congress, it provides a lot of detail about various agency programs, projects, and activities. So currently, CDC is funded at about $9 billion. This budget proposal has it at about $4 billion so it's missing a lot of information about various programs and projects, and so when Jeffrey Ekoma and my team, put together our 11-page Legislative Alert, he had to look at not only the CJ, but also the HHS Budget and Brief, and also previous appropriation bills to really understand the full picture about what's happening. So, I just want to let our listeners know that our 11-page Legislative Alert, we really did the best that we could to piece together a picture about what's happening and what's being proposed, but to please be patient with us as well. It was a very confusing budget document to walk through. And then the next step in this process is Congress has the authority to reject, approve, or modify the President's budget proposal. The power of the purse rests with Congress, and so they will begin writing appropriation bills in the next couple weeks, and will be using some of the budget materials as they work through drafting that legislation.

SILVERS: 

And the Big Beautiful Bill act is everywhere in the news, but what's going on with that right now in the Senate?

MULLEN: 

Yeah, so the Big Beautiful Bill is very different from the annual appropriations process. The Big Beautiful Bill has tax reform in it, but also proposes significant changes to Medicaid and SNAP. Currently, that bill is sitting with the Senate, and our understanding is the Senate is not going to hold traditional markups, which is consideration of the bill using an amendment process that's fully transparent. Rather, they're going to introduce managers' amendments to the legislation, probably over the weekends, with the goal of passing this bill before July 4. So, it'll be really challenging to understand the changes that the Senate's proposing if they propose any changes to the underlying legislation. And finally, just a reminder, it's a simple majority vote in the Senate, if they do make changes, it has to go back to the House for another vote. So, we will keep you all updated, and please look for a Legislative Alert once things become clearer as this bill makes its way through the process in the Senate.

SILVERS: 

Awesome, and I know that the White House is talking rescissions. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

MULLEN: 

So, rescissions is completely separate from all of these other things we're talking about again. So, the goal of a rescissions package is to quote, unquote, "make legal the DOGE cuts that have transpired." So, included in this rescissions package is a proposal to rescind the funds from USAID, PBS, NPR. It does not include any proposals to formally rescind funds from public health. We are going to keep a close eye on this legislation as it makes its way through the House first, and then the Senate. This legislation is a simple majority vote. We view this as a trial balloon, so OMB Director Vought has made it very clear that he wants to return money to the Treasury, and in his view, this is the first step in that process. What's concerning to us is over the weekend, we read articles and heard OMB Director Vaught indicate that he intends to use an uncommon procedure, called pocket rescissions, and so this rescission package goes through Congress, but if it doesn't go through, he has another tool in his toolbox that he will use. And that is, towards the end of the Fiscal Year, they will just rescind funds, and there is some argument that that is legal. So, as we get closer to September, we'll be keeping a close eye on the potential utilization of pocket rescissions, which is separate from this legal process and legislative process that's working out in Congress right now. So, there's a lot of uncertainty right now, to be honest, and we're doing the best we can here on the government affairs team, but just want to assure our listeners, we're up on the Hill almost every day trying to request for transparency and clarity on all of the actions that are happening, but to please reach out to us if you have any questions.

SILVERS: 

And lastly, you talked about your most recent Legislative Alert. Can you tell us how important those are and where people can sign up for those?

MULLEN: 

So, our Legislative Alerts are a summary of any pending proposals from the administration or Congress, and the team works really hard to analyze and digest and provide information in a very 'simple-to-read' way, with hyperlinks to the more technical documents, and you can sign up for those on our website.

SILVERS: 

Terrific. Carolyn, thank you and your team for all the work you guys do. Happy Friday.

MULLEN: 

Happy Friday. Thanks so much.

SILVERS: 

Also, ASTHO wants to help you with your leadership goals. O'Keyla Cooper explains.

O'KEYLA COOPER: 

Join ASTHO on Wednesday, July 9, at 2 p.m. Eastern Time for the second installment in ASTHO's Essentials of Leadership and Management series, this Accelerate workshop will focus on building strong communication skills to help you handle tough conversations and give better feedback. Register now using the link in the show notes.

SILVERS: 

Finally, ASTHO has a free e-learning opportunity to allow your organization to better utilize the STRETCH framework. Learn about STRETCH and the tools you can equip by clicking the link in the show notes.

SILVERS: 

That'll do it for today. We're back on Monday morning with more ASTHO news and information. I'm Janson Silvers. You're listening to the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great weekend.