Congress Moves to Block White House Plan to Politicize Federal Research Grants
核心洞察
A bipartisan Senate stopgap funding measure would block a Trump administration proposal to give political appointees control over federal research grants, at least until December 11.
The House passed the Senate appropriations bill by a 370-48 vote, continuing federal agency funding and pausing the proposed grant-making rule changes.
The proposal would have replaced independent peer-review panels with politically appointed bureaucrats overseeing grants from the NIH, NSF, and other agencies.
A bipartisan effort in Congress has temporarily blocked a Trump administration proposal that would have given political appointees control over federal research grants, preserving the current system of independent peer review at least until December 11.
Senate leadership released the text of a bipartisan government funding stopgap measure that would block the White House's proposal to give political appointees control over federal research grants. The continuing resolution would fund the government until December 11, and would only block the administration's new grants proposal until that time. However, the provision emerged from bipartisan discussions in the appropriations committee, to which Republican leadership agreed, making it more difficult for Republicans to allow the White House's plan to take effect now that they have agreed to blocking it, even if temporarily.
House Approval and the Path Forward
On Tuesday, members of the House of Representatives voted 370-48, with 14 members not voting, to adopt the Senate appropriations bill that will continue funding federal agencies until December 11. The Senate is expected to consider the funding bill this week, after which it will break for August recess.
The government funding bill that the House passed two weeks ago did not include a similar provision blocking the grant rule, and the House was already in recess. Once members return, the two chambers will need to work out their differences before government funding expires at the end of September, and the president would need to sign the measure.
The Proposed Rule Changes
In August, as part of the stopgap measure, the Senate agreed not to adopt proposed rule changes from the Office of Budget Management (搜索) that would give politically appointed bureaucrats authority over federal research grants. If implemented, these changes would break from the current system, in which independent panels of peer reviewers — experts in the field — assess grant requests for funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and other governmental agencies.
Scientific Community Opposition
The proposed rule changes have met an outpouring of opposition from the scientific community. Thousands of researchers, including several Nobel laureates, used the public comment period on the proposal to say it would politicize research and destroy U.S. leadership in global science.
The question of whether the proposed rule changes will go further could hinge largely on the outcome of the midterm elections, which will be held in November. Democrats, who are currently favored to win control of the House, have broadly opposed the changes.