Trump Administration Proposes Sweeping Rule Change to Politicize Federal Science Funding
Key Insights
The White House Office of Management and Budget (search) (OMB) has proposed a 412-page rule that would fundamentally restructure how federal science agencies award research grants, replacing peer review with political oversight.
Under the proposed changes, senior political appointees would be required to review and approve all grant decisions, with explicit authority to override scientific peer-review panel conclusions.
The rule would ban international scientific collaborations with researchers from certain countries, prohibit research on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and bar grant funds from covering journal publishing fees or conference attendance without prior written approval.
The Trump administration is pursuing a bureaucratic rule change through the Office of Management and Budget (search) (OMB) that would fundamentally restructure how every federal science agency awards and administers research grants, granting political appointees unprecedented control over billions of dollars in federally funded research. Published in the Federal Register on May 29, the 412-page proposal, titled "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance," has drawn swift condemnation from scientists, advocacy groups, and Democratic lawmakers who warn it could dismantle the peer-review system that has underpinned American scientific leadership for nearly a century.
"Although research has bipartisan support in the US Congress, and trust in science is above 75% across the country, the Trump administration seems as determined as ever to mortally wound the nation's scientific enterprise," Holden Thorp, editor of Science magazine, wrote in an editorial about the proposal.
Peer Review Superseded by Political Oversight
Since the post-World War II period, the U.S. scientific community has relied on a system of peer review to evaluate research proposals and maintain scientific integrity. Under the current system, when a researcher submits a grant proposal—for example, through NASA's Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) program—it is assigned to a panel of independent scientists who are active researchers in the relevant field. Panel members are selected for expertise and screened for conflicts of interest. Proposals are evaluated anonymously against published scientific criteria: the significance of the research question, the rigor of the methodology, the feasibility of the proposed work, and the qualifications of the proposal team.
The proposed rules would supersede that process with mandatory review of all grant decisions by a senior political appointee who is explicitly prohibited from deferring to the panel's conclusions. Scientific criteria would, in practice, be overridden by a requirement that awards demonstrably advance an individual president's policy priorities.
"While it's been true that peer review panels have always been treated as advisory by agencies, it was usually the combination of peer review with a non-political career expert at an agency that made the determination of whether to issue an award or not," said Cole Donovan, a policy analyst from the group Stand Up for Science (search).
Critics argue the change effectively gives political officials veto power over projects, even when they have passed scientific peer review. "When we're designing a study to a new cancer therapeutic, do you want Russell Vought (search) — who is not a scientist — to determine which immunotherapy is ready to go into a phase three trial?" said Elizabeth Ginexi, a former staffer at the National Institutes of Health who has been speaking out against the proposed changes.
Broader Restrictions on Research and Collaboration
Beyond the restructuring of grant approval, the proposed rule institutes a government-wide ban on any research involving collaboration with researchers from certain other countries, even if that researcher lives in the United States. "We are involved in a huge amount of international collaboration," said Donovan. "Much of the work that's considered high-impact is based on international collaboration."
Additionally, researchers would be barred from using grant funding to pay for publishing fees associated with major scientific journals, to attend conferences to share their research, or to conduct outreach to share their findings with the public—each an integral component of how scientific ideas mature—without prior written approval. The proposed rules also officially ban research on diversity, equity and inclusion or gender as grant conditions, and give political appointees the ability to terminate any award at any time for any reason, only needing to cite that the grant no longer conforms to "agency priorities." There would be no appeals process for researchers whose work is affected by these changes.
Political and Scientific Response
"This would be the end of American science as we know it," said Donovan. "We're gonna make sure that it doesn't fade quietly into the night."
The Infectious Diseases Society of America (search) issued a statement with the headline: "Proposed rule would replace scientific merit with McCarthy era politics."
Historian Tim Snyder, speaking at an online forum organized by Stand Up for Science (search), compared the proposal to "late Stalinism," remarking: "We're asking ourselves whether we wanna repeat that Stalinist situation where people who know nothing about science are the ones who are making the decisions about what's going to go forward."
Several Democratic lawmakers have also spoken out. "When promising research is denied because it doesn't fit the political agenda of the moment, the American people will pay the price," said U.S. Rep. James Walkinshaw of Virginia. "The question isn't whether politics will influence research under this proposal. That's the point."
Administration officials argue the rule change serves efficiency. In a statement, an OMB spokesperson wrote it would "improve the ability of agencies to identify and respond to waste, fraud, and abuse." Critics counter that there is no evidence the existing peer-review system requires such sweeping changes.
Public Comment Period and Next Steps
The proposed rule must undergo a 45-day public review process under the Administrative Procedure Act, with comments due by July 13, 2026. Public comments become part of the permanent record and can build substantive opposition that shapes whether the regulations are finalized, changed, or overturned.
Congress is unlikely to take action on the rule change, making the public comment process the primary avenue for opposition. A finalized regulation would be binding on every federal agency uniformly, far harder to challenge in court than executive orders, and could only be superseded by an act of Congress.
The proposal represents the OMB's answer to earlier resistance: throughout 2025, the administration attempted to implement many of these changes through executive orders and agency directives, including grant freezes on politicized topics and immediate rejection of grants based solely on containing specific keywords. Courts stayed or reversed several early terminations, finding the administration had exceeded its authority. Formalizing these policies through federal regulations would give them legal standing that executive orders do not carry.