The Alliance of Tribal Coalitions to End Violence wants to express our strong opposition to the proposed $1.8 billion in cuts in the House FY 2025 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations bill to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The cuts as proposed would significantly reduce the CDC’s funding by 22 percent, and eliminate the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (Injury Center) and more specifically the first-ever Rape Prevention Education (RPE) funding for Tribal Coalitions.
Below is a template to use to email/and or call your members of the House Appropriations Committee. Find your representative’s emails here: NNEDV | House Appropriations Committee Members
Template Email and/or phone call script:
I am writing/calling to ask you to oppose the proposed $1.8 billion in cuts in the House FY 2025 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations bill to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These cuts, which would slash the CDC’s funding by 22 percent, include the elimination of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (Injury Center).
This cut would eliminate the Rape Prevention and Education Program (RPE) and DELTA domestic violence prevention grants.
RPE has benefited from broad bipartisan support since this program was first authorized in the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. RPE provides the backbone of sexual violence prevention in our country. DELTA is the only dedicated federal funding source for the primary prevention of domestic violence. Eliminating these programs will have devastating impacts on American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) people, states, communities, young people, families, rape crisis centers, and survivors.
Injuries and violence are critical public health threats facing the United States today, particularly in injuries sustained by and violence perpetrated against American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) people. According to the CDC, in 2021, homicide rates among AI/AN people were nearly four times higher than homicide rates for non-Hispanic White people. A disproportionate number of AI/AN people are murdered or go missing each year. Intimate partner violence was a factor in 44% of homicides of AI/AN women and 11% of AI/AN men. Approximately 58% of AI/AN women and 51% of AI/AN men experienced intimate partner violence during their lifetimes. In the first half of life, more Americans die from violence and injuries — such as motor vehicle crashes, falls, suicides, homicides, or opioid overdoses — than from any other cause, including cancer, HIV, or the flu. Yet injuries and violence are predictable and preventable.
I join the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, the Alliance of Tribal Coalitions to End Violence, the National Network to End Domestic Violence, the Safe States Alliance, and many other organizations in asking you to provide robust FY 25 funding for RPE, DELTA and the Injury Center.
For more information please see this RPE fact sheet.
Below is the letter sent to the House Appropriations Committee on behalf of the ATCEV and Tribal Coalitions:
Dear Chair Aderholt and Ranking Member DeLauro,
The undersigned tribal domestic violence and sexual assault coalitions, representing the Alliance of Tribal Coalitions to End Violence, write to express our strong opposition to the proposed $1.8 billion in cuts in the House FY 2025 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations bill to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The cuts as proposed would significantly reduce the CDC’s funding by 22 percent, and eliminate the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (Injury Center), and would severely weaken our public health infrastructure, placing millions at risk, including many of our most vulnerable citizens, and those to whom the federal government has a trust responsibility, the American Indian and Alaska Native citizens. We call on Congress to reject these harmful reductions contained in the House FY 2025 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations bill.
Injuries and violence are critical public health threats facing the United States today, particularly in injuries sustained by and violence perpetrated against American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) people. According to the CDC, in 2021, homicide rates among AI/AN people were nearly four times higher than homicide rates for non-Hispanic White people. A disproportionate number of AI/AN people are murdered or go missing each year. Intimate partner violence was a factor in 44% of homicides of AI/AN women and 11% of AI/AN men. Approximately 58% of AI/AN women and 51% of AI/AN men experienced intimate partner violence during their lifetimes. For the public in general, In the first half of life, more Americans die from violence and injuries — such as motor vehicle crashes, falls, suicides, homicides, or opioid overdoses — than from any other cause, including cancer, HIV, or the flu. Yet injuries and violence are predictable and preventable.
Robust investment in the CDC and its diverse array of programming is vital to America’s health and well-being. The Injury Center provides distinct primary prevention programming, research, and evaluation that is not duplicative to programs across other agencies, and the proposed cuts would effectively undo decades of progress toward a safe and healthy future.
The recently released bill text is a misguided threat to programs and services that protect American Indian and Alaska Native communities and families. We call on leadership to oppose the following cuts:
-
- A 22% decrease in CDC funding, $2.3 billion less than the President’s budget request, and $1.8 billion below the FY24 enacted level; and
-
- Elimination of funding for the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, a cut of $761 million below the 2024 level and $943 million below the President’s FY 2025 request, which would in turn eliminate several key programs addressing:
-
-
- Rape prevention
- Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention
- Child Sexual Abuse Prevention
- Adverse Childhood Experience (ACEs) prevention
- Suicide prevention
- Firearm injury and mortality prevention research
- Opioid overdose prevention and surveillance
- Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) prevention
- Drowning prevention
- Elder fall prevention
-
As a collective committed to preventing domestic and sexual violence, we call on Congress to prioritize injury and violence prevention programs that protect our nation’s public health and the health of American Indian and Alaska Natives by rejecting the FY 2025 House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations bill.
Sincerely,
Alliance of Tribal Coalitions to End Violence
American Indians Against Abuse, Inc.
Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women First Nations Women’s Alliance
Healing Native Hearts Coalition
Hopi-Tewa Women’s Coalition to End Abuse Midwest Native Coalition for Justice & Peace
Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition Native Alliance Against Violence
Native Women’s Society of the Great Plains Reflections of Inspiration Inc.
Restoring Ancestral Winds Inc. Coalition Sacred Hoop Coalition
Seven Dancers Coalition
Southwest Indigenous Women’s Coalition
Strong Hearted Native Women’s Coalition, Inc.
Uniting Three Fires Against Violence
Wabanaki Women’s Coalition
WomenSpirit Coalition
Yupik Women’s Coalition
