Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are aiming to cut $1.7 billion from domestic HIV prevention, treatment, and care programs.On Monday, the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee released its Fiscal Year 2026 funding bill for the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and related agencies. According to the Washington Blade, the bill would cut the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventions entire $1 billion in funding for HIV/AIDS prevention including state and local programs that provide HIV testing and access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Related The president just halved the budget of a massively successful HIV-prevention program The CDC cuts also include $220 million in funding for the Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative, a program launched by President Donald Trump during his first term in office. The bill would also cut funding for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Care and Treatment Program by 20 percent.The Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee met Tuesday evening to consider the bill. As the Blade notes, if passed in the House, the bill would need to be reconciled with the bipartisan Fiscal Year 2026 budget bill passed by the Senate earlier this year, which did not include cuts to domestic HIV programs. Insights for the LGBTQ+ community Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more. Subscribe to our Newsletter today In a statement, HIV + Hepatitis Policy Institute executive director Carl Schmidt said the disastrous bill would reignite HIV in the United States, according to the Blade. Schmidt urged Congress to reject the bills reckless funding cuts, explaining that Eliminating all HIV prevention means the end of state and local testing and surveillance programs, educational programs, and linkage to lifesaving care and treatment, along with PrEP and would lead to an increased number of new HIV infections, which will be costlier to treat in the long run.In a Tuesday statement, the Save HIV Funding campaign decried the bill, saying that it would put peoples lives and health at risk and increase medical costs by eviscerating the federal response to the HIV epidemic. Advocates know from experience that #CutsKill, and that the stripping of critical, life saving services for people in every community in our country will result in more illness and death, the campaigns statement read. The HIV community knows that Silence = Death; and the Save HIV Funding Campaign along with its members and allies will not be silent while conservative Congressional leaders rob people of their health and lives.The campaign notes that federal HIV programs are cost-effective, with every $1 invested in prevention saving the U.S. health care system $3 to $7 in future treatment costs. Cuts to these programs, the campaign says, would actually increase long-term spending.The Save HIV Funding Campaign recently announced that actor Javier Muoz and RuPauls Drag Race alum Peppermint would join advocates and organizers to meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill this week to urge them to protect and expand funding for HIV/AIDS programs in the U.S. Peppermint and Muoz are scheduled to meet with Congressional offices on Wednesday, while advocates will continue to meet with lawmakers on Thursday and Friday. The three days of lobbying will coincide with the annual U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS (USCHA) in Washington, D.C., this week. As both the Blade and The Guardian reported, ahead of the start of USCHA, activists gathered in D.C. to protest the Office of Management and Budgets reported plan to withhold more than half of the $6 billion Congress appropriated for the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) for fiscal year 2025. As the New York Times reported last month, OMB has only apportioned $2.9 billion for the hugely successful program this year, which is the same amount in the administrations 2026 budget proposal. At Tuesdays rally and march organized by Housing Works, Health GAP, and the Treatment Action Group, activists demanded that OMB release the remaining funds before they disappear when the fiscal year ends on September 30.The funding is there. The global health programs that have been shuttered, Congress has funded them but OMB is not permitting it to be spent. They are impounding those funds, Atul Gawande, the former assistant administrator for global health at USAID, said at the rally in front of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, according to The Guardian. That is not legal.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.