With ‘Cancer Moonshot’ announcement, Biden turns to causes most important to him in final months in office

By Kayla Tausche, CNN

(CNN) — President Joe Biden’s first public event planned since his exit from the 2024 race last month marked a cause close to home: Announcing a major financial award from the cancer-curing policy arm he created in the wake of his son Beau Biden’s death.

The “Cancer Moonshot” program, founded while Biden was vice president and bolstered with billions in new funding since 2022, aims to provide cutting-edge research to halve the number of cancer deaths in the coming decades. On Tuesday, Biden highlighted $150 million in new research awards to eight organizations, including $23 million to Tulane University, the backdrop for the announcement.

“We’re mobilizing the whole country effort to cut American cancer deaths in half by 20, 25 years and boost support for patients and their families. I’m confident in our capacity to do that. I know we can, but it’s not just personal — it’s about what’s possible,” Biden said Tuesday.

As the president concludes his single term in office, the White House – including Vice President Kamala Harris – is working to disburse as much funding as allowable under current programs, with uncertainty looming in November and beyond. The focus is on unleashing funds through Biden’s signature infrastructure, semiconductor and clean energy legislation.

Officials expect Harris to lean into the laws that have sent trillions of dollars into the economy, especially the areas where she played a personal role, as she crafts her own economic platform, which is set to be released later this week. Harris, they note, advocated for lead pipe funding and high-speed internet deployment – and personally authored the legislation on clean school buses that ended up being part of the infrastructure law.

While Biden has passed the baton to Harris on the campaign trail, he’s focusing the twilight of his five-decade career in public service on causes most personal to him.

Cancer research holds “immense importance” to the president, one aide said, as his senior team works to amplify his work over the last three and a half years and cement his legacy. ARPA-H, the research outfit launched in conjunction with the Cancer Moonshot, has received $4 billion from Congress and made $400 million in cancer-related awards to outside entities since it was jumpstarted in 2022 – a sizable budget for a single policy, but a drop in the bucket compared to the trillions of dollars of new government spending the Biden administration has ushered in.

Between now and January, Biden plans to prioritize doling out tens of billions of funds earmarked for his signature laws, traveling overseas to bolster alliances, and making policy pronouncements, including using executive authority where possible, aides say.

While the remaining months will see Biden with much more downtime than were he campaigning for himself, he still plans to stump for Harris in states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina, where his administration holds appeal to older, suburban voters.

In an interview with CBS News that aired over the weekend, the president said he promised Beau Biden he’d remain committed to service, a pledge he says he intends to fulfill.

“‘Dad, you gotta make me a promise,’” the president recalled his son saying shortly before his death from brain cancer at the age of 46. “‘When I go, you’ll stay engaged. Give me your word. Give me your word.’ And I did.”

Policy shortlist

For years, Biden has said bolstering the cancer initiative was part of his so-called “unity agenda,” a shortlist of policies – including higher penalties for fentanyl trafficking and legislation regulating artificial intelligence – that he believed could garner bipartisan support. And during his Oval Office address discussing his departure from the race last month, Biden said the initiative – as well as reforms on guns, climate and the Supreme Court – would keep his focus this fall.

But during a highly charged election year, with any activity in Congress beyond funding the government expected to be put on hold, such announcements could be symbolic at best.

Biden in late July rolled out a proposal for term limits and a binding code of ethics for Supreme Court justices and called for a constitutional amendment removing immunity for crimes committed while serving as president – a set of proposals in the works since before he stepped aside as the nominee. White House officials acknowledge that carrying out such proposals is a tall order but have suggested the president still wants to put a “stake in the ground” on the issues he sees as most critical.

Biden’s chief of staff Jeff Zients has instructed Cabinet agencies and executive branch staff to source new policy ideas in four main categories: Implementing existing legislation, lowering costs, safeguarding personal freedoms, and strengthening the United States’ place in the world.

The US has renewed urgency to reach a ceasefire and hostage deal in the Middle East, calling for a summit to negotiate the final details that is expected to take place this week. Biden is expected to travel to Brazil for the G-20 Summit in late November, where he will face questions about potential engagement with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. And the White House will also look to ramp up its diplomatic engagement with India, an ally that has become a critical partner to the US in countering China’s aggression in the region.

“We want to create a more prosperous and secure Indo-Pacific and the world,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “That is going to continue to be our focus as we move forward,” she said.

Implementation awaits

Domestically, the White House remains focused, first and foremost, on getting money out the door and shovels in the ground on Biden’s signature legislative measures. In all, some $563 billion have been awarded to projects funded by the infrastructure, semiconductor, and clean energy laws — roughly one-third of the total funding the government is expected to provide over the course of several years.

Senior administration officials told CNN that Zients and deputy chief of staff Natalie Quillian, who leads the administration’s efforts to implement the laws, are in touch multiple times a week to track progress and funding.

Regardless of what happens in November, the White House believes these investments should be relatively future-proof, citing recent requests from a handful of Republican lawmakers that the money not be rescinded in future budget negotiations.

“As these investments hit the streets and bring jobs to local economies, they don’t want to see them go away,” Quillian told CNN.

Much of the trillion-plus dollars in government funding and credits is scheduled to be released on an annual basis that resets with the fiscal year, with 80% of the money available under the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act having been awarded.

The Commerce Department expects to award the full $39 billion in grants from the CHIPS and Science Act by the end of the year, with tens of billions of dollars in funding for ancillary activities to be awarded after that. And the Treasury Department has enabled businesses and individuals to apply for nearly all of the tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act.

“We’re moving as quickly as we can” to get the policies in place, a senior administration official told CNN.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said his agency has delivered some $12 billion in funding but has yet to send out all the money allocated to the Department of Agriculture.

“There’s not pressure. You want to make sure you’re investing those resources wisely,” Vilsack said when asked about the desire to disburse the funding before Biden’s term ends. If a future Congress or administration moved to rescind unspent money, he said, that would be “a mistake.”

A torrent of new capital will be unlocked on October 1 when the government’s fiscal year resets, increasing the urgency to make that money available to qualifying agencies and local authorities in the final weeks before the election.

CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to clarify that ARPA-H has received $4 billion in congressional funding.

CNN’s Samantha Waldenberg contributed to this report.

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