Elizabeth Ginexi, a former NIH Program Official for 22 years, warns about an effort by the OMB to change federal grants system in a way that could cause major long term damage to American scientific research.
From the article:
"Since World War II, the United States built the world’s preeminent scientific enterprise on a straightforward principle: federal dollars should fund the best science, as determined by independent experts rather than politicians. Peer review, open competition, and institutional autonomy were the pillars of that system. This proposed rule dismantles all three, simultaneously, government-wide, and binding on every federal agency by October 1, 2026.
What OMB is proposing is not a reform of grants management. It is a complete political control apparatus layered over every stage of the federal science funding lifecycle.
• Before a competition opens, every program must be designed to align with the President’s policy priorities, not scientific need, statutory mandate, or expert consensus.
• When opportunities are announced, agencies can restrict who is eligible, and the agency head can exempt solicitations from public posting under a broad national interest exception.
• When applications are reviewed, political appointees must personally evaluate every discretionary grant. Peer review is explicitly reduced to advisory status. Appointees are forbidden from deferring to scientific experts.
• When awards are made, grants can be conditioned on compliance with an undefined “Gold Standard Science” standard, and institutions can be disqualified based on their affiliations or the political character of their prior work.
• During the research itself, scientists cannot attend conferences, join professional societies, subscribe to journals, or publish in peer-reviewed journals without express agency pre-approval. Each of those approvals can simply be withheld.
• At any moment, an active grant, including a multi-year award already mid-project, can be terminated because a political appointee decides it no longer aligns with agency priorities. No finding of misconduct is required.
• When results are ready to share, publication costs are presumptively unallowable, and any public communication that could be labeled issue advocacy on a sensitive topic puts the entire award at risk.
The rule is also notable for what it cites as justification. The preamble relies heavily on Heritage Foundation reports, partisan Senate committee documents, and White House fact sheets, rather than independent scientific or administrative assessments. It characterizes decades of peer-reviewed research on climate, public health, equity, and international collaboration as “woke,” “neo-Marxist,” “anti-American,” or “divisive ideology.” It treats the scientific community’s professional infrastructure, including conferences, journals, international partnerships, and open access publishing, as wasteful overhead to be controlled or eliminated.
Congress has repeatedly appropriated funds for science agencies with the expectation that those funds would be administered through merit-based, expert-driven processes insulated from political interference. This rule attempts to override that expectation administratively, without new legislation, by repurposing OMB’s grants management authority as a vehicle for political control of science.
The public comment period closes approximately July 13, 2026 (45 days from May 29 publication). Comments must be submitted to regulations.gov, Docket OMB-2026-0034.
Scientists, universities, scientific societies, patient advocacy organizations, state governments, and members of the public all have standing to comment. Given the scope of what is proposed, the breadth and volume of opposition in the formal record will matter both legally and politically."
Posted by loremipsumot
3 Comments
She also has some guidance on how to leave a public comment on the rule changes, who should do so, and why it helps: [https://elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/what-we-need-to-do-next-ombs-proposed](https://elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/what-we-need-to-do-next-ombs-proposed)
“Under the Administrative Procedure Act, OMB must respond to every significant comment before finalizing the rule. A large volume of substantive comments serves three purposes:
• It creates a record of opposition that courts can review if the rule is challenged
• It forces OMB to defend each provision individually, potentially causing them to drop or narrow the most indefensible ones
• It signals to Congress that the rule is controversial enough to warrant legislative action or appropriations riders
A form letter campaign is far less effective than individual substantive comments. OMB can dismiss 100,000 identical comments as a single comment. A single well-argued comment from a scientist, university, or professional society explaining exactly how a specific provision would harm a specific type of research carries far more weight.”
> Before a competition opens, every program must be designed to align with the President’s policy priorities, not scientific need, statutory mandate, or expert consensus.
> When opportunities are announced, agencies can restrict who is eligible, and the agency head can exempt solicitations from public posting under a broad national interest exception.
> When applications are reviewed, political appointees must personally evaluate every discretionary grant. Peer review is explicitly reduced to advisory status. Appointees are forbidden from deferring to scientific experts.
Just these three points alone is enough to kill US academia for good.
I don’t know why Trump is so insistent on handing everything to China – which has its own problems in its academic practices – though it is obvious who is going to replace the US if they suddenly sink to the bottom of academic output. Doubly so if he ends up forcing researchers, many of whom are foreigners and on US visas, to leave.
Thank you for sharing this very important call to action, OP. The amount of long-term damage they are threatening to science in the US is genuinely terrifying.
To reiterate what OP said in their comment, leaving a public comment on the proposed rule change provides real assistance to future legal challenges to the rule, so it is important to do. (I used to think that these public comments were just shouting into the void, before I read and learned more, which is why I want to highlight that point.)
Note that the deadline for leaving comments is July 13, at 23:59 Eastern Time.
I hate how much these losers can tear down our civilization, and how they’re doing it for no reason at all. Down with the kakistocracy.