Gallego, Colleagues Press Trump Administration Over Chaotic Decisions on Substance Abuse, Mental Health Services

Letter to HHS seeks answers over abrupt termination and reinstatement of Congressionally-appropriated funds for SAMHSA services

WASHINGTON — Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) joined 18 Democratic Senate colleagues in pressing the Trump administration for answers over its recent plan to cut nearly $2 billion in federal funding for critical substance abuse and mental health services, only to reverse course on its decision one day later, causing mass chaos and confusion for patients and providers nationwide.  

“Cancelling these grants would have jeopardized critical work being done on the frontlines of the opioid crisis, which directly contradicts this administration’s own stated goals to tackle the opioid crisis,” the senators wrote in their letter to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “Although HHS has since reversed course, much damage has already been done. Some staff were laid off or put on notice, services were paused, and trust between patients in need of these services and their providers has been permanently undermined.”

Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) abruptly announced its plan to cancel over 2,000 active grants administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Funding for many of these programs was just recently reauthorized by Congress on a bipartisan basis under the SUPPORT Act.

Less than a day later, it was reported that HHS had reversed course on its plan to cancel the grants, retaining current funding levels as appropriated by Congress. Despite this, the immediate cancellation of the grants followed by the unexpected reinstatement caused mass confusion and chaos. Providers were left questioning if they had funding to continue their services, while patients were left unsure if they would continue to have access to the mental health and addiction treatment services they rely on.

The proposed grant cancellations came just months after the administration purged critical staff working on the frontlines of America’s opioid crisis under SAMHSA.  

Furthermore, the senators noted in their letter that the abrupt issuance of these grant termination notices without warning, explanation, or apparent statutory basis, as was reported, would be a violation of federal grant law.

Read the full letter HERE.

This letter builds on Senator Gallego’s record of fighting to ensure that mental health and substance abuse programs get the resources they need. Last June, Senator Gallego introduced an amendment to Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill that would strike any provision cutting Medicaid funding for substance use disorder treatment. In August, he called on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to immediately release overdue funding for overdose prevention programs. Senator Gallego has also backed legislation such as the bipartisan Telehealth Response for E-prescribing Addiction Therapy Services (TREATS) Actto strengthen access to addiction treatment services, and bipartisan bills to crack down drug trafficking, like the Halt All Lethal Trafficking of (HALT) Fentanyl Act, Contraband Awareness Technology Catches Harmful (CATCH) Fentanyl Act, Combating Illicit Xylazine Act, and Nitazene Control Act.