The agency, which distributes funding to some 300,000 scientists worldwide, has seen its funding wax and wane over the last 20-odd years. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Congress doubled its funding each year, infusing the agency with cash. But for years afterward, the budgets stayed stagnant. Funding advocates explain that NIH didn’t lose its bipartisan support—other issues, like national defense, simply became more pressing. This hurt the agency’s ability to fund scientists’ research grants and labs’ ability to retain young researchers, and made planning for multi-year projects extremely difficult.

Scientists and NIH officials alike were encouraged by the recent enthusiasm around NIH. In an interview last year, agency Director Francis Collins said he hoped Congress would begin “a trend to get us back on a stable, predictable, upward trajectory.” At the time, lawmakers seemed mostly on board with that plan, as the Republican chairs of the relevant funding panels both supported future budget bumps. Congress hasn’t settled on funding for the 2017 fiscal year, but legislators planned for another NIH increase of up to $2 billion.

The question now is how closely congressional Republicans will conform to the president’s proposal as they craft their own budgets, and how strongly the president’s staff will push for this particular cut. In a statement, Representative Tom Cole, who chairs the House funding panel with jurisdiction over NIH, said Congress will take the budget proposal “into consideration,” but that “ultimately” Congress will decide “what will get cut and what will be increased.” According to STAT News, Cole wants a $2 billion increase for NIH in 2018. Asked for comment, Cole’s Senate counterpart, Roy Blunt of Missouri, noted that “there are many concerns with non-defense discretionary cuts” in the budget blueprint. “The president’s budget is the first step in the appropriations process.”

It’s true that there are many more steps to go before final numbers are settled. But for NIH, the president’s proposal will nevertheless be unsettling news.