Using U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant panel data, Hegde and Mowery and Hegde look at political influence at the US congressional level on the allocation of these funds. Their key finding is that members of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee and former New York Senator Al D’Amato as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee were able to indirectly steer NIH grant money to organizations in their home states. A reexamination of their evidence does not support that conclusion.