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Nearly two dozen states sued the Trump administration and the National Institutes of Health on Monday to block a $4 billion cut to research funding that scientists say would cost thousands of jobs and eviscerate studies into treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease and a host of other ailments.
The funding cuts were to take effect Monday. The attorneys general of Massachusetts and 21 other states filed the suit, arguing the Trump administration’s plan to slash overhead costs — known as “indirect costs” — violates a 79-year-old law that governs how administrative agencies establish and administer regulations.
“Without relief from N.I.H.’s action, these institutions’ cutting-edge work to cure and treat human disease will grind to a halt,” the lawsuit said.
On Capitol Hill, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the chairwoman of the chamber’s Appropriations Committee, strongly objected to what she called “these arbitrary cuts.” Ms. Collins, a Republican, said that when she called President Trump’s nominee for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to complain, he promised to “re-examine this initiative” if confirmed.
The filing is the latest in a string of lawsuits challenging Mr. Trump’s policies. Also on Monday, a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to “immediately restore” trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans, including from the N.I.H., that had been frozen under a sweeping directive the president issued, and later rescinded, late last month.
Scientists, medical researchers and public health officials have felt under siege since Mr. Trump became president. In addition to freezing grant dollars and slashing overhead costs, the administration has blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from publishing scientific information on the threat of bird flu to humans.