House Lawmakers Grill RFK Jr. on Mercury Rule, HHS Job Cuts

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s positions on mercury contaminants, HHS personnel cuts, raw milk, and other controversies were front and center at a House hearing on Thursday.

Rep. Josh Harder (D-Calif.) said that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) repeal in February of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule meant that “coal-burning power plants are now allowed to emit more than twice as much mercury as they were before. How are these actions consistent with your agenda to make our children healthy?” he asked Kennedy during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing to review the HHS budget for the 2027 fiscal year.

“Those are actions that are not taken by my agency, and I am not familiar with exactly what’s happening at EPA,” Kennedy replied. “I would have to ask [EPA Administrator] Lee Zeldin about that.”

‘Convenient Amnesia’

“You’re the Secretary of Health and Human Services. You made a career out of fighting mercury pollution,” Harder said, noting that Kennedy brought lawsuits targeting coal-burning utilities specifically over their mercury emissions before his time in Washington. “Are you telling me that you don’t have an opinion about this mercury rule?”

Kennedy said he didn’t think any mercury was good, “and that’s one of the reasons we’re holding up the Gavi grants, because they’re giving mercury[-containing] vaccines that are banned in Europe and the United States.” Kennedy was referring to a public-private global partnership that pays for childhood vaccinations in low-income countries. The Trump administration said in January 2025 that it was cutting its funding for Gavi, and Kennedy said in June that the U.S. would withhold financial support from the organization, calling on it to “re-earn the public trust” and start taking vaccine safety seriously.

Harder kept pressing, but Kennedy said that “I’m not going to comment because I don’t know anything about it.” Harder didn’t like that answer. “It sounds like pretty convenient amnesia to me,” he said.

Questions About Job Cuts

Kennedy also was asked about HHS job cuts. “I have 77,000 federal employees in my district,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). “When we talked last year, I asked you about this, and you said to me that [some HHS] personnel that should not have been cut, were cut. I don’t know whether you still believe that, but that’s what you said last year. How many full-time employees do we have in HHS now?”

“When I talked to you, there were 62,000, down from 82,000,” Kennedy replied. “We are now at 72,000, and we’re hiring 12,000 employees. We will have made up all the employees that we lost, but we’ll replace them with a better group of people who are actually going to address chronic health [issues].”

“Your judgment is that the other 20,000 [who were fired] were not capable?” Hoyer asked.

“It’s not my judgment — It’s the record,” said Kennedy. “They presided over the biggest decline in health in the history of the world … We have the sickest population on the face of the earth. That is a failure of government. They weren’t looking at chronic disease. They were focused on other things, and they did nothing to prevent the food dyes, the bad food, all of the things that are making us sick. It was their job to protect us, and they did not do it. They failed at their job. And if this was private industry, they would have all been fired.”

Hoyer said he disagreed that the workers were fired for incompetence. “Most of us believe that they were fired to reach a number, a lesser number,” he said. “It’s ironic that you’ve just told me we’ve reached back to that number.”

The recent recall of cheese made with raw milk was on the mind of Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). She noted that it took 18 days — after nine people were sickened and three were hospitalized — from the time the FDA issued a recall recommendation for the company to actually recall the product, which it only did “under protest.” And the FDA said only that it was “providing information” about the recall recommendation so consumers could decide whether they would still eat the cheese.

After mentioning that Kennedy was a fan of raw milk, she asked, “Did you or another senior official exert any influence in the way the FDA alerted consumers about this outbreak?” Kennedy said that he agreed the company’s behavior was “unprecedented.”

“They initially refused, and we put tremendous pressure on them and told them that we were doing a forceful recall, and finally they complied,” he said, adding that raw milk was regulated by the states rather than the federal government. (Raw milk sales are illegal across state lines but some states allow it to be sold within its borders.)

Kudos From Republicans

Several committee members said they were pleased with Kennedy’s work so far. “I want to thank Secretary Kennedy for charting a new course that is fighting chronic disease,” said Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.). “In addition to taking on chronic disease, the administration is restoring common sense to hospitals that perform mutilating surgeries on children. The Department of Health and Human Services has taken numerous actions to end the practice of sex change surgeries on minors in the healthcare system … Ending these practices is long overdue.”

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) commended Kennedy for his work on “right to try” issues. “In particular, I appreciate the FDA efforts under your leadership to expand access to investigational drugs for patients with no other options,” Clyde said. “Your personal work in the approval of the drug elamipretide, now known as Forzinity, has been a lifeline for one of my constituents. She was a 5-year-old little girl. Her name was Hope, and she now has hope because she battles a rare mitochondrial disease. This was meaningful.”

Clyde also asked about the administration’s plans to further restrict federal funds being spent for abortions. “Title X of the Public Health Service Act has explicitly excluded abortion since its creation in 1970, yet previous administrations allowed large abortion providers to receive Title X grants without meaningful separation between family planning and abortion services,” he said, adding that the Biden administration had rescinded the Protect Life Rule implemented during President Trump’s first term — a rule that barred Title X family planning funds from being given to organizations that provide, promote, or refer for abortions. “Does HHS plan to issue a new Protect Life Rule to protect the integrity of the Title X funding going forward?” he asked.

“We are about to issue new NOFOs [Notices of Funding Opportunities],” said Kennedy. “I think you’ll be very happy with them.”