Republican leaders agreed to issue a provision in the government funding package to clarify an amendment to make clear the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is not prohibited from researching gun violence, The Hill reported.

The omnibus spending package will not repeal a 1996 amendment from the late Rep. Jay Dickey, R-Ark., which has been renewed each year, the Hill reported.

The so-called Dickey Amendment says "None of the funds made available in this title may be used, in whole or in part, to advocate or promote gun control."

However, Republicans have said the amendment never barred gun violence research in the first place, saying the CDC essentially censored itself, the Hill reported.

Advocates of the agency say research could not be done when there is no money attached for it, the report said. Such research has been held at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Washington, and the University of California, Davis, according to the report.

Alex Azar, the secretary for Health and Human Services, said the CDC should resume the work.

"We're in the science business and the evidence-generating business, and so I will have our agency certainly working in this field, as they do across the broad spectrum of disease control and prevention," Azar said at a congressional hearing, The New York Times reported.

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