U.S. Sen. Susan Collins will vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the nation’s next health secretary.
That news clears a major hurdle for Kennedy, whom President Donald Trump nominated to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Collins revealed her vote on Monday to CNN’s Manu Raju, who called it a “big boost” for Kennedy’s confirmation. The Maine Republican was one of three potential GOP holdouts on Kennedy’s nomination, and with a narrow Republican majority, he can’t afford to lose many votes.
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Earlier this year, Collins called some of his past statements “alarming.” Kennedy has falsely linked vaccines to autism and said the Trump administration will seek to remove fluoride from public water systems.
Her decision to back Kennedy comes after Collins spoke with him about the Trump administration’s biomedical research funding cuts.
The Trump administration on Friday said it would cap reimbursement for “indirect costs” for National Institutes of Health grants at 15 percent, down from 27-28 percent on average. Collins called the cap “poorly conceived” and “arbitrary,” raising concerns about the potential impact on Maine’s universities.
Maine universities could lose about $7.5 million in funding from the change.
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In response to the move, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey joined 21 other state attorneys general in suing the Trump administration to prevent that change from going ahead.
Collins said Monday that Kennedy promised to reexamine the change once confirmed as health secretary.
“He seemed to understand the concerns that I was raising about … what it would mean for more very important ongoing biomedical research including clinical trials,” Collins told Raju.
