Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wants a measure to lift the ban on federal research into gun violence to be included in the omnibus spending package.
“We must insist that we cannot have a bill leave the station that still has that ban on research in it,” she said at an event Thursday.
Her remarks come as Congress has yet to reach agreement on a spending bill to fund the government through the rest of fiscal 2016. On Wednesday, Congressional leaders announced plans to vote on a short-term measure by Friday to keep the government open until Dec. 16 while they negotiate.
The ban on the causes of gun violence originated in 1996 for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and was extended in 2011 to the National Institutes of Health, according to a coalition of doctor groups fighting the ban.
President Obama allowed the CDC to resume gun violence research in 2013, but no funding has been included to do so, and the doctor coalition says that restrictive language is still in place.
The groups, which include Doctors for America and National Physicians Alliance, recently turned in a petition signed by more than 2,000 doctors calling for an end to the ban.
Pelosi joined advocates from Newtown Action Alliance and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence at the event. It occurred four days before the third anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn.
Pelosi’s push for a policy “rider” comes as Democrats have pushed against other riders from Republicans, namely concerning a rollback of new Environmental Protection Agency water rules and new restrictions for Syrian and Iraqi refugees.
