The White House Office of Budget and Management is planning massive changes to the way federal grants are handed out, making it so that government funding can only be spent on programs that are “aligned with administration policies and priorities.”
If passed, the new rules would also allow President Trump’s political appointees to supersede federal agencies’ merit-based decisions in order to ensure the grants “demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities.” There is also a portion of the proposal that bans the use of “theories of disparate-impact liability”—a legal concept that helps determine when a policy is disproportionately discriminatory.
Experts argue that the change would give Trump’s political appointees, most of whom are not experts, undue control over what kind of research gets funded.
“This touches all parts of American life,” Veterans Administration psychiatrist Dr. Eric Rafla-Yuan told the Los Angeles Times in an article published Friday. “Control of how all of the federal grants and programs are funded will fall under a small group of highly partisan individuals who would have very few limits on how they spend these billions of taxpayer dollars.… If there’s a specific age range that is at higher risk for suicide, and we want to figure out, well, what’s going on with people that are aged 14 to 19 … we can’t do that under the wording in this rule.”
A massive group of various experts in fields ranging from cancer research to public housing have come out against the proposal, and there are over 100,000 comments on it. OMB published the proposed rule in the federal register in May, and the comment period ends July 13.
“A significant number of the provisions in this proposal would in fact increase administrative complexity, create uncertainty for grant recipients, reduce transparency in funding decisions, and undermine the merit-based processes that have effectively guided federal research investments,” the American Association for Cancer Research said in a statement. “This OMB proposal is reckless and does not meet the high U.S. standards required for a meritorious, impactful research grant program.”
The Planetary Society wrote in its own statement, “Science is the backbone of the American economy, generating a 3-to-1 return on the taxpayer’s investment. Our nation has always relied on merit-based, independent scientific review to select the best ideas and new technologies for development. The proposed rule changes would all but end the use of scientific merit in the selection of grants and programs across the government.”
Even Republican Senator Susan Collins expressed her concern, writing that it would “inject uncertainty into the Federal award process, especially for awards that span multiple years and phases and make these awards more costly.” She also noted that the “termination of clinical trials would leave patients without treatment and could well result in significant scientific and financial losses to both the recipient and the Federal government.”
The OMB, led by Project 2025 architect Russell Vought, has been one of the president’s most favored tools of administrative destruction, as it’s helped him do everything from slashing crucial programs like U.S. Agency for International Development to shifting money toward his White House ballroom.
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