A bill to allow for greater collaboration between the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and the network of Manufacturing USA institutes.

Bill ID: 119/s/1305
Last Updated: April 5, 2025

Sponsored by

Sen. Tillis, Thomas [R-NC]

ID: T000476

Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law

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5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.

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Bill Summary

Another bill, another exercise in legislative theater. Let's dissect this farce and expose the real disease beneath.

**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The "Agility in Manufacturing Preparedness Act of 2025" (because who doesn't love a good acronym?) claims to facilitate collaboration between the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and the network of Manufacturing USA institutes. Wow, how original. Because what we really need is more "collaboration" between government agencies and private interests.

**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill amends Section 319L(c)(4)(F) of the Public Health Service Act to include "manufacturing technologies, platforms" in BARDA's strategic initiatives. Oh boy, this must be a game-changer. It also allows for collaboration with Manufacturing USA institutes on biomanufacturing missions. Because, you know, the private sector wasn't already profiting from government contracts and grants.

**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects: BARDA, Manufacturing USA institutes, and their respective lobbyists and donors. Don't worry, they'll all get a piece of the pie. And by "pie," I mean taxpayer dollars.

**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a classic case of "regulatory capture." It's a Trojan horse for private interests to influence government policy and secure lucrative contracts. The real beneficiaries will be the corporations and special interest groups that have been greasing the wheels of Congress with campaign donations and lobbying efforts.

Diagnosis: **Crony Capitalism Syndrome**, a disease characterized by the corrupting influence of money in politics, leading to policies that benefit the powerful at the expense of the public. Symptoms include:

* Overuse of buzzwords like "collaboration" and "innovation" * Vague language allowing for exploitation by special interest groups * Lack of transparency and accountability

Treatment: **Radical Transparency** and **Campaign Finance Reform**. But let's be real, that's not going to happen anytime soon.

In conclusion, this bill is a masterclass in legislative doublespeak, designed to obfuscate the true intentions of its sponsors and beneficiaries. It's just another example of how our government prioritizes the interests of the powerful over those of the people. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have better things to do than watch this farce unfold.

Related Topics

Civil Rights & Liberties State & Local Government Affairs Transportation & Infrastructure Small Business & Entrepreneurship Government Operations & Accountability National Security & Intelligence Criminal Justice & Law Enforcement Federal Budget & Appropriations Congressional Rules & Procedures
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đź’° Campaign Finance Network

Sen. Tillis, Thomas [R-NC]

Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle

Total Contributions
$66,100
15 donors
PACs
$0
Organizations
$0
Committees
$0
Individuals
$66,100

No PAC contributions found

No organization contributions found

No committee contributions found

1
BARATTA, JOSEPH PATRICK
2 transactions
$6,600
2
BLITZER, DAVID S
2 transactions
$6,600
3
CAMERON, WILLIAM H
2 transactions
$6,600
4
CHAE, MICHAEL
2 transactions
$6,600
5
COWLEY, JASON
2 transactions
$6,600
6
SASTRY, ASHWANI
1 transaction
$3,400
7
AGARWAL, SAJJAN K
1 transaction
$3,300
8
ALLYN, JILL
1 transaction
$3,300
9
BIELEN, RICHARD J
1 transaction
$3,300
10
BRAND, MARTIN
1 transaction
$3,300
11
CHAVERN, DAVID
1 transaction
$3,300
12
COOPER, ELLEN
1 transaction
$3,300
13
CURTIS, MONICA
1 transaction
$3,300
14
DAVISON, SCOTT
1 transaction
$3,300
15
DOWLING, JOSEPH
1 transaction
$3,300

Donor Network - Sen. Tillis, Thomas [R-NC]

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Total contributions: $66,100

Top Donors - Sen. Tillis, Thomas [R-NC]

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Project 2025 Policy Matches

This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.

Introduction

Low 48.2%
Pages: 297-299

— 264 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise mission a minimum percentage of its portfolio that must go to new, underutilized, and local partners. Crucial to the strategy will be increasing the use of open com- petition that lowers barriers to entry and fixed-amount awards that carry less of a compliance burden along with eliminating cost-plus reimbursement contracts that favor large companies. Before advancing a new program, the agency should be required to assess existing local activities to avoid undercutting or duplicating them. At every opportunity, USAID should build on existing local initiatives. Global Health. The United States is the world’s largest funder of global health initiatives. For more than 60 years, the American people have offered health assis- tance to the world and saved millions of lives. The USAID Bureau for Global Health (GH), the second largest within USAID, oversees a multibillion-dollar operation to support maternal and child health; voluntary family planning; PEPFAR and the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) (both started under President George W. Bush); and other initiatives against other infectious and neglected tropical diseases. Effective use of funds is essential to maximize care for the world’s neediest people. Countries with strong health institutions and sound public health practices responded quickly to and recovered more rapidly from the COVID-19 pandemic. This demonstrates the importance of “localization,” by which USAID helps gov- ernments and the private sector in developing countries to strengthen their own ability to address needed training, services, accountability, and organiza- tional capacity. Unfortunately, many USAID-funded global health activities remain rooted in patterns that began decades ago and measure improvements in terms of inputs— money spent—instead of outcomes achieved. From the 1950s to 1970s, the major recognized threats to human health were infectious diseases such as polio and smallpox, and USAID funded programs “in” a country, not “with” a country. Mater- nal and child health, food, water, and sanitation programs were often intermittent. USAID consistently financed population control, contraception, and abortion as essential to “development.” Most programs focused on one disease or condition but had little integration with other global health activities. Chronic diseases were ignored. Consequently, the next conservative Administration should focus on updating the Global Health Bureau’s portfolio, emphasizing a comprehensive approach to supporting women, children, and families; building host-country institutional capacity; increasing awards to local and faith-based partners (expanding what occurred during the Trump Administration with the NPI); and improving USAID’s ability to coordinate with local partners. Updating Funding Priorities. The Bureau should identify and eliminate out- dated and ineffective concepts and focus on funding innovation. A rigorous review is necessary to ensure that current programs and funding streams avoid wasting taxpayer dollars and prioritize what is needed now and what works.

Introduction

Low 48.2%
Pages: 297-299

— 264 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise mission a minimum percentage of its portfolio that must go to new, underutilized, and local partners. Crucial to the strategy will be increasing the use of open com- petition that lowers barriers to entry and fixed-amount awards that carry less of a compliance burden along with eliminating cost-plus reimbursement contracts that favor large companies. Before advancing a new program, the agency should be required to assess existing local activities to avoid undercutting or duplicating them. At every opportunity, USAID should build on existing local initiatives. Global Health. The United States is the world’s largest funder of global health initiatives. For more than 60 years, the American people have offered health assis- tance to the world and saved millions of lives. The USAID Bureau for Global Health (GH), the second largest within USAID, oversees a multibillion-dollar operation to support maternal and child health; voluntary family planning; PEPFAR and the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) (both started under President George W. Bush); and other initiatives against other infectious and neglected tropical diseases. Effective use of funds is essential to maximize care for the world’s neediest people. Countries with strong health institutions and sound public health practices responded quickly to and recovered more rapidly from the COVID-19 pandemic. This demonstrates the importance of “localization,” by which USAID helps gov- ernments and the private sector in developing countries to strengthen their own ability to address needed training, services, accountability, and organiza- tional capacity. Unfortunately, many USAID-funded global health activities remain rooted in patterns that began decades ago and measure improvements in terms of inputs— money spent—instead of outcomes achieved. From the 1950s to 1970s, the major recognized threats to human health were infectious diseases such as polio and smallpox, and USAID funded programs “in” a country, not “with” a country. Mater- nal and child health, food, water, and sanitation programs were often intermittent. USAID consistently financed population control, contraception, and abortion as essential to “development.” Most programs focused on one disease or condition but had little integration with other global health activities. Chronic diseases were ignored. Consequently, the next conservative Administration should focus on updating the Global Health Bureau’s portfolio, emphasizing a comprehensive approach to supporting women, children, and families; building host-country institutional capacity; increasing awards to local and faith-based partners (expanding what occurred during the Trump Administration with the NPI); and improving USAID’s ability to coordinate with local partners. Updating Funding Priorities. The Bureau should identify and eliminate out- dated and ineffective concepts and focus on funding innovation. A rigorous review is necessary to ensure that current programs and funding streams avoid wasting taxpayer dollars and prioritize what is needed now and what works. — 265 — Agency for International Development Focusing on Holistic Health Care and Support for Women, Children, and Families. The continued high rate of maternal and infant mortality is a persistent global tragedy. Contrary to current publicity, this problem is not solved by abortion. Families genuinely cherish children. The next leadership at USAID must focus attention on women and children’s health (including unborn children) as well as health risks across life spans, including childhood infections, cervical cancer, adolescent risks, and family stability, by utilizing a coordinated approach. The Bureau should implement a “Request for Application for Resilient Families” that harvests collaborative funds from siloed programs and makes individuals and the family, not diseases or conditions, the true focus of intervention. Increasing USAID Collaboration with Faith-Based Organizations. FBOs historically have been much more successful in outreach to remote and vulnerable populations, based on trust built through decades of service. The value of collab- orating with FBOs was demonstrated in the October 2020 Evidence Summit on Religious Engagement. In sub-Saharan Africa, FBOs often provide more than 80 percent of health care, especially to the extremely poor. In contrast, the Global Health Bureau historically has provided 85 percent of its funding to large U.S. NGOs with significant overhead costs, as a result of which only 20 percent–30 percent of funding reaches people in need.15 Leveraging the Strength and Experience of Presidential Initiatives. Mil- lions of people are alive today because of the American people’s investment in PEPFAR and PMI. The training, laboratory, clinical intervention, health educa- tion, data collection, and organizational platforms of these programs became the bedrock for responding to the COVID pandemic. It is time for these programs to become part of an integrated, strong, and sustainable network of health care and public health in developing countries. A smooth transition to national ownership and funding, however, will require better coordination of USAID’s own stovepiped programs with PEPFAR and PMI. Strengthening the Collection and Use of Data. Good decisions are based on accurate data. For decades, global health programs have relied mostly on statis- tical modeling (rather than actual data) or survey data (the weakest type of data). Poor data quality undermines both the evaluation and improvement of desired outcomes achieved by our global health programs. The Trump Administration implemented critical updates of PEPFAR’s systems for the collection and reporting of data to increase transparency and hold funded partners and overseas missions accountable. The next conservative Administration should apply these reforms to all of USAID’s global health programs. Strengthening Private-Sector Engagement. The Bureau’s Center for Inno- vation and Impact (CII) should be empowered to expand networks of private and faith-based health organizations that can develop projects using develop- ment-impact bonds, capital funds, and innovative technologies, including with the

Introduction

Low 46.2%
Pages: 485-487

— 452 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise Unaccountable bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci should never again have such broad, unchecked power to issue health “guidelines” that will certainly be the basis for federal and state mandates. Never again should public health bureaucrats be allowed to hide information, ignore information, or mislead the public concerning the efficacy or dangers associated with any recommended health interventions because they believe it may lead to hesitancy on the part of the public. The only way to restore public trust in HHS as an institution capable of acting responsibly during a health emergency is through the best of disinfectants—light. Goal #5: Instituting Greater Transparency, Accountability, and Over- sight. The next Administration should guard against the regulatory capture of our public health agencies by pharmaceutical companies, insurers, hospital conglomer- ates, and related economic interests that these agencies are meant to regulate. We must erect robust firewalls to mitigate these obvious financial conflicts of interest. All National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Food and Drug Administration regulators should be entirely free from pri- vate biopharmaceutical funding. In this realm, “public–private partnerships” is a euphemism for agency capture, a thin veneer for corporatism. Funding for agencies and individual government researchers must come directly from the government with robust congressional oversight. We must shut and lock the revolving door between government and Big Pharma. Regulators should have a long “cooling off period” on their contracts (15 years would not be too long) that prevents them from working for companies they have regulated. Similarly, pharmaceutical company executives should be restricted from moving from industry into positions within regulatory agencies. Finally, HHS should adopt metrics across the agency that can objectively deter- mine the extent to which the agency’s policies and programs achieve desired health and welfare outcomes (not agency outputs). What is not measured is not achieved. CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION (CDC) COVID and Structural Reform. COVID-19 exposed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as perhaps the most incompetent and arrogant agency in the federal government. CDC continually misjudged COVID-19, from its lethality, transmissibility, and origins to treatments. We were told masks were not needed; then they were made mandatory. CDC botched the development of COVID tests when they were needed most. When it was too late, we were told to put our lives on hold for “two weeks to flatten the curve;” that turned into two years of interference and restrictions on the smallest details of our lives. Congress should ensure that CDC’s legal authorities are clearly defined and limited to prevent a recurrence of any such arbitrary and vacillating exercise of power. The CDC should be split into two separate entities housing its two distinct func- tions. On the one hand, the CDC is now responsible for collecting, synthesizing,

Showing 3 of 5 policy matches

About These Correlations

Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.