OMB Proposed Rule "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance" Public Comment Period (CLOSES JULY 13, 2026)
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published a proposed rule, Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance (full text in link), that would fundamentally change the landscape of research in the U.S. (the largest research and development spender in the world, so this has global impact unfortunately) and how funding/grants are used across every agency in the federal government (food assistance, education, medicaid, to name a few areas).
Some changes would include:
Agencies and programs cannot use federal funds to promote or facilitate “DEI practices,” “gender ideology,” or related activities. This would be a mandatory grant condition across all federal agencies and programs. “DEI practice” is never defined by the rule, meaning it can be applied however they want. We know who will be most impacted by this (immigrants, BIPOC, trans folks, disabled people, poor people, students, educators...).
Grants/funding can be terminated at any time if an award is deemed no longer in the "U.S. national interest" by political appointees. Again, the administration has not made a secret of what and who they think are not in the national interest. The rule would also remove the right to appeal such terminations.
Political appointees would have authority to determine which funding proposals represent the best science. This would essentially completely undermine the peer-review process in U.S. science. Scientific peer review would be merely advisory rather than integral to the process of determining which research proposals get funded.
Please consider making a unique public comment through the Regulations.gov website by choosing the option to comment as “an individual” or as “anonymous”. Reminder these are public comments, so anonymize yourself/submit anonymously if you don't want your identity/a particular detail in the public record. Comments close July 13.
See if your organizations are making a comment as a collective (if not, maybe you can start organizing)!
Please also consider spreading the word about this- contact colleagues, friends, etc, to write a comment. Anyone can share the way this rule would impact communities they care about, you do not have to be a researcher. A lot of people simply don't know this is happening (understandable given the news cycle); the more people are aware, the better opportunity we have to fight it.
And finally, please consider calling your reps about this, perhaps via 5calls.
Further resources for understanding and commenting on this issue (please feel free to add more):
Summary of the proposed rule
Summary of broad impacts of the proposed rule
Infographic and Video for visual explanation of how to submit a public comment
Further tips for submitting effective public comments
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