Louisiana lawmakers are sending $7.5 million into three LSU System institutions to help replace lost federal research funding.
The Louisiana Legislature usually spends some money annually on higher education research, but Senate President Cameron, R-Metairie, said there was a greater need this year after President Donald Trump’s administration rescinded grants and has proposed a reduction in reimbursements.
“That hit them flat footed,” Henry said. “The reduction happened and we wanted to make up for that. That doesn’t mean they’re going to get it every year … at least we can stand them back up and let them prepare for future reductions.”
In its first months in office, the Trump administration has made drastic moves to upend how science is funded. The White House has paused funding for many scientific projects believed to be related to diversity, equity and inclusion and proposed slashing resources for administrative costs related to research funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. NSF is also pausing funding of all existing grants and will stop awarding new grants.
The state budget, approved on the last day of the legislative session Thursday, includes $3 million for the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, $2 million for the LSU AgCenter and $2.5 million for research equipment at a facility LSU Health Shreveport is setting up in a recently acquired former department store.
Pennington spokesman Ernie Ballard said the funds will provide relief for losses due to suspension of funding from collaborators, the potential reductions to indirect cost rates and the threat of reductions and terminations of grants.
While research-specific, line item appropriations were limited to the LSU System, the state’s other university systems received several million dollars in one-time funding for their priorities.
“Each school has always set individual priorities … Whether or not all of our schools got everything they asked for, I do think schools were generally successful in some of their priorities they set,” University of Louisiana System Rick Gallot said.
LSU and other research institutions in Louisiana spend close to $1 billion annually on research. The sudden loss of federal funding for university research is expected to have a detrimental impact to Louisiana’s economy. Each dollar spent on research is estimated to have triple the fiscal impact, according to numerous economic impact studies the universities have published.
The universities will receive the funding unless Gov. Jeff Landry uses his line-item veto power to remove it from the budget, but it is unlikely he will do so.