Federal Research Funding Cuts Pose Significant Risks For Colorado Economy
- Dan Powers
- Jun 17
- 3 min read
This is an excerpt from the Research Colorado by BizWest article written by Robert Davis. See the full article and more about research news in Colorado here.
President Donald Trump’s efforts to significantly reduce federal funding for scientific research threaten to shake up Colorado’s economy.
Over the past decades, Colorado has become a national leader in scientific research because of the state’s university system, strong scientific workforce pipeline, and increasing amount of investment capital flowing into the market. Last year, the University of Colorado and Colorado State University systems combined to attract a record-breaking $2.1 billion in total research funding. Colorado also boasts one of the highest concentrations of federal labs in the country, with 34 federal research institutions located in the state.
But that market faces significant threats from declining federal grant funding. On March 26, the Department of Health and Human Services canceled more than $12 billion in grants for infectious disease, mental health and addiction treatment. The move could cause Colorado to lose more than $230 million in COVID-19-related grants for state and local health departments. A federal judge temporarily blocked the cuts to research grants on April 3 after 23 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration, but the future of the funding remains uncertain.
Meanwhile, Trump unilaterally capped overhead costs for grants from the National Institutes of Health at 15%, a move that cost universities and research institutions millions in rent and administrative costs. Even though that move was also temporarily halted by federal judges, it still created significant uncertainty throughout the scientific community.
Dan Powers, executive director of CO-LABS, a nonprofit consortium of federally funded labs in Colorado, told BizWest that the impact of the Trump administration’s moves to cut research funding is still unfolding. Even so, they will be widely felt across several industries.
“If you think of the technologies and information we use today, such as getting our weather forecasts, using our cell phones, trusting the equipment in hospitals for cancer treatment or other emergency surgeries, the ability to trust the food that we are picking up every day in the grocery stores–all of these conveniences that we take for granted have tap roots, often of decades to research and discoveries and ongoing analysis in federal research labs,” Powers said.
The impact of declining federal scientific funding will be felt across the state, and the Boulder Valley and Northern Colorado could face a significant disruption. The area is home to federal labs, as well as the University of Colorado Boulder and Colorado State University, two of the preeminent research universities in the country.
Colorado’s economy relies on scientific research, with federally funded research producing an economic impact of about $2.3 billion annually and 12,000 jobs, according to CO-LABS, with labs concentrated in Boulder, Jefferson and Larimer counties.
CO-LABS’s estimate take into account the economic impact of federal labs such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology and National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Division of Vector Borne Diseases in Fort Collins; and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, among others.
On Feb. 11, Trump issued a directive for federal agencies to implement “large-scale reductions in staff” and to submit their staff reduction plans within a month. The Department of Veterans Affairs has said it seeks to reduce its workforce by 80,000 employees. The Department of Health and Human Services has proposed eliminating up to 10,000 jobs, including 4,700 job cuts between the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration. NOAA could lose another 1,000 employees after a round of firings that began in early March.
“These reckless mass terminations and the administration’s unilateral gutting of federal agencies are already causing deep harm to our country and communities right here in Colorado,” Rep. Joe Neguse, who represents Boulder County, said in a statement. “They will undoubtedly have disastrous ramifications for the scientists and experts working right here in our very own backyard to ensure accurate forecasting, issue severe weather alerts and provide the community with emergency information.
