A bipartisan Senate funding measure unveiled Aug. 2 would temporarily block a Trump administration rule that would allow political appointees final say over federal research grants.
The draft continuing resolution would extend government funding through Dec. 11 and keep the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed grant rule from taking effect for the duration of the stopgap.
The May 29 OMB proposal would set a governmentwide framework that treats scientific peer review as advisory and requires senior political appointees to conduct a “pre-issuance review” confirming that each award advances the president’s policy priorities. It would also allow agencies to terminate multiyear grants already underway if the work “no longer effectuates program goals, federal agency priorities or the national interest.”
National research and medical groups have decried the rule. The American Association for Cancer Research called it “reckless” and a “major threat” to NIH, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America warned it would “drive away multitudes of researchers and eliminate the promise of lifesaving cures for decades to come.”
The OMB accepted public comments through July 13.
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she pushed “significant changes to the proposed rule” while citing “its potential to politicize grants and harm small, rural communities, families, and biomedical research.”
The freeze faces resistance from some Republicans. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., a senior appropriator, said he was inclined to oppose the bill because it would take “away President Trump’s authority to review government grants.”
For health system leaders, particularly at academic medical centers dependent on NIH funding, the measure offers a temporary reprieve. Because the block expires with the continuing resolution, the rule’s fate returns to Congress in December. Senators planned a procedural vote the evening of Aug. 3, aiming to pass the measure before the August recess.
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