The Biden administration has given EcoHealth Alliance, the organization earlier linked to funding “gain-of-function” research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan, China, lab considered to be the source of COVID-19, another $2 million to spend on bat viruses.

And Republicans are infuriated by the “absolutely reckless” decision.

The organization will be getting $2.3 million over the next few years for funding of work on “bat-origin coronaviruses,” prompting Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, to complain the move does not pass the “COVID smell test.”

Further, House Oversight chief Rep. James Comer, a Republican, said it was “bat crazy” and Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., said it was “absolutely reckless.”

According to a report in the Daily Mail, the award comes from Biden’s National Institutes of Health.

EcoHealth, a nonprofit run by Peter Daszak, was at the center of the COVID-19 controversy because it funneled tax dollars to Wuhan’s Institute of Virology, where even Democrats now admit COVID-19 likely originated before it circled the globe and killed millions of people.

Grant money to the organization was suspended under President Donald Trump’s tenure in office.

The report explained that decision came when it was discovered NIH funneled tax money through EcoHealth to Wuhan, which was doing gain-of-function research which essentially takes very dangerous viruses and makes them worse – more lethal or more contagious or both.

Now Biden is renewing the taxpayer funding for EcoHealth.

Griffith responded, “It’s absolutely reckless that the NIH has renewed a grant for EcoHealth Alliance given their negligence and the breach of their contract with the NIH on the coronavirus research done at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

He pointed out that EcoHealth consistently has refused to cooperate with Congress.

“Until they can demonstrate a willingness to work with Congress to resolve outstanding questions and fulfill all of the terms of their federal contracts, paid for with American taxpayer dollars, all funding should remain suspended, and no new contracts should be awarded,” Griffith said.

Republicans in Congress last year issued a report citing “indications” that the Wuhan lab “had a lab incident tied to China’s biological weapons program that led to COVID-19 being ‘spilled over’ to the general public,” the report said.

The FBI already had concluded that the COVID catastrophe came from “most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.”

Ernst told the Daily Mail, “Ecohealth has already betrayed the trust of American taxpayers by funneling funds to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology for risky experiments on bat coronaviruses that may have unleashed the COVID-19 pandemic on the world. Americans deserve accountability, which is why it’s past time to defund EcoHealth.”

The report noted that as part of the terms of the new funding, “EcoHealth has agreed not to subcontract work to China, collect new virus samples from the wild or carry out ‘gain of function’ research.”

This article was originally published by the WND News Center.

This post originally appeared on WND News Center.