The Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee passed Senate Bill (SB) 895 in a 5-2 vote on April 14. The bill — authored by Senators Sasha Pérez, Aisha Wahab and Scott Weiner — would establish the California Foundation for Science and Health Research and provide a $23 billion bond for scientific research.
“SB 895 proposes to double and triple down on California’s global leadership in science, and to ensure that research continues here regardless of the ups and downs of the federal government,” Weiner said during the senate hearing.
If enacted, the bill puts the California Foundation for Science and Health Research in charge of distributing grants and loans to “public or private research companies, universities, institutes and organizations for scientific research and development.” Funding would primarily go to biomedical, behavioral health and climate research.
SB 895 was introduced in January of this year and in March, UC President James B. Milliken announced UC’s sponsorship of the bill. Other sponsors include the United Auto Workers Region (UAW) 6 and the Union of American Physicians and Dentists.
“This means new treatments for medical conditions, solutions to protect our communities from wildfires and innovation that drives California’s economy and helps create new jobs,” Milliken said.
At a time when the future of research is at stake, SB 895 would provide a safety net for the scientific community in California, Vice Chancellor of Research at UC San Francisco Dr. Harold Collard said during the hearing.
“SB 895 will sustain and create new jobs, enrich our economy and ensure that California remains the world’s leader in cutting edge scientific discoveries,” Collard said.
President Trump’s proposed budget for the 2027 fiscal year includes a $993 million cut to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a $1.1 billion cut to the Office of Science and a $5 billion cut to the National Institutes of Health.
“If researchers don’t know year to year whether funding will continue, they will take their research elsewhere,” Weiner said. “If California does not retain our top tier science science talent, we will lose our pipeline to life saving research and to major industries in our state.”
PhD student at UC Berkeley and UAW Local 4811 member Nicole Garrido voiced her support for the bill during the hearing. She spoke about how her research on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) was impacted by the recent federal funding cuts.
“Just a few weeks ago, my own lab felt those cuts directly when a five year federally funded project on PFAS precursor bio transformation was cut short with two years of work and about half a million lost,” Garrido said.
The UC system plays a significant role in economic profit generated from scientific research. For every dollar the state invests in a UC, $21.04 is generated in economic activity and $14.32 in economic value is made.
“As California’s second-largest employer, UC employs more than 266,800 Californians,” UC said in a statement. “When we lose research funding, we lose the jobs that come with it, from researchers to medical professionals to student support to administrative and facilities roles.”
There was no lead opposition witness, but Committee Member Henry Stern shared his worries over how the co-sponsors of the bill could affect funding distribution. He specifically spoke about the relationship Israeli students and researchers have with UAW.
“The rest of the world desperately needs American universities to be doing research in an open minded way that doesn’t try to take the politics of the moment and insert them into what is supposed to be a much more open approach,” Stern said, adding that research in areas like climate science and renewable energy would face scrutiny in Israel.
Weiner emphasized how the foundation created by this bill will promote collaboration with universities all over the world and be led by California law.
The bond will appear on the November 2026 ballot.
Alejandra Rodriguez Zepeda is a News Staff Writer. She can be reached at aejar16@uci.edu.
Edited by Geneses Navarro.
