Congress is taking action to block the Pentagon from using taxpayer dollars to fund risky animal coronavirus research in Wuhan, China.

A provision within the fiscal year 2024 defense authorization bill, which passed the House and Senate this week, prohibits the Pentagon from funding experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology – which is at the center of the COVID-19 lab-leak theory.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who included the measure in the NDAA, told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview this week that American dollars ‘have been diverted in the past to institutions in communist China.’

She is working to trace the money and ensure that future taxpayer funds are not spend on ‘experimentation that is reprehensible to the American public.’