A House subcommittee targeting abortion providers has requested nearly $500,000 in additional funding to continue its investigation, The Hill reports (Ferris, The Hill, 7/1).
According to Rewire, a congressional aide indicated the Committee on House Administration has approved the request (Grimaldi, Rewire, 7/1).
Background
The subcommittee is the fourth House committee to investigate Planned Parenthood following the release of a series of misleading videos targeting the organization. The subcommittee is allowed to probe, among other topics, federal funding for health care providers who also provide abortion services and providers' practices for abortions later in pregnancy. According to subcommittee Chair Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), the panel has subpoena powers that it will use in consultation with the House speaker. The subcommittee could recommend changes to laws and regulations based on its findings.
The subcommittee has issued several subpoenas requesting the names of fetal tissue researchers, spurring criticism from medical groups and liberal lawmakers who are concerned that the subpoenas could put researchers, students and medical professionals at risk of antiabortion-rights violence.
In May, Blackburn called on HHS to investigate multiple abortion clinics and StemExpress, a tissue procurement company targeted in the videos and in a report released by the subcommittee. In June, Blackburn asked New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas (D) to launch an investigation into whether an abortion clinic in the state and the University of New Mexico (UNM) violated state law when transferring fetal tissue. StemExpress and officials with UNM Health Sciences Center have denied the respective allegations.
Liberal lawmakers in the House have repeatedly criticized the investigation and called for the subcommittee's disbandment (Women's Health Policy Report, 6/28).
Latest developments
Conservative lawmakers on the subcommittee have asked the Committee on House Administration for an additional $490,000 in funding. Including the $300,000 in funding approved last year, the subcommittee could spend $790,000 on the investigation, Rewire reports. The allocations would total almost 80 percent of the House's available funds for supplementing operating budgets.
Liberal lawmakers on the Committee on House Administration denounced both the first funding approval and the latest request. According to the lawmakers, the latest action is the second time the committee "decided without a public hearing or a proper vote to pay for the political attack on Planned Parenthood" (Grimaldi, Rewire, 7/1).
Similarly, liberal lawmakers on the subcommittee also criticized the latest funding request, citing the lack of public scrutiny. They noted that besides holding two hearings and sending out numerous subpoenas for information that does not pertain to Planned Parenthood, the subcommittee has accomplished little (The Hill, 7/1).
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), ranking member of the subcommittee, lambasted the investigation and the funding request. "This has not been -- nor will it ever be -- a fact-based investigation," she said, adding, "Instead the Panel is being run as a taxpayer-funded arm of anti-abortion groups, in pursuit of a partisan, anti-science, and anti-health care agenda. Enough is enough" (Rewire, 7/1).
