OMB rule would give political appointees control of $1 trillion in grants

Nearly 500,000 public comments oppose OMB grant overhaul

Harvard School of Public Health professor Nancy Krieger said she received an email from the National Institutes of Health canceling her nearly $1 million grant to study how discrimination affects population health. “It was complete shock and dismay,” she said. Her grant was among the first R-01 cancellations in the country.

The administration’s first year saw the Department of Government Efficiency target research on gender, race and equity, as well as any program that attempted to reach underserved communities, according to the Guardian’s reporting.

The May 2026 proposal from the Office of Management and Budget, which Krieger and other researchers are now fighting, would institutionalize similar upheaval across the entire federal grant-making apparatus, affecting funding for health care, education, social services and environmental protections, according to the proposal text. The rule would also allow the federal government to cancel awards that are no longer in the federal government’s “interest,” a provision that researchers said they experienced in spring 2025 when grants on disparate impacts and gender were canceled.

The proposal, which runs more than 400 pages, would put nearly $1 trillion in grant-making into the hands of political appointees by October, according to the Guardian. Of that total, about $150 billion is typically invested in science and technology. The National Institutes of Health, the world’s largest public funder of biomedical and behavioral research, has a budget of $47 billion.

The rule would prohibit “DEI” or diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and discourage international collaboration between scientists, the proposal states. It would also require demonstration of presidential “priorities” and allow the government to consider an applicant’s “affiliations with organizations engaged in activities that violate federal law, undermine public safety or national security, or advocate for the overthrow of the United States government.”

Sara Rosenbaum, professor emerita of health law and policy at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, said the proposal covers “healthcare, education, social services, environmental protections – it’s way, way beyond just research.”

The administration allowed only 45 days for public comments, a period that closed this week, which Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global public health at Georgetown Law, described as “a subterfuge for moving ahead when they’re really not interested in what the comments say.” Analyses show as much as 95% of the nearly half a million comments opposed the rule, according to the Guardian.

Twenty-two state attorneys general have come together to oppose the rule. “The Trump administration is once again attempting to weaponize essential federal funding to advance its policy priorities,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement urging the OMB to withdraw the proposal. “This proposal aims to undermine practically every industry and public service supported by federal funding.”

Tammy Baldwin, a Democratic senator from Wisconsin, said in a statement that “President Trump and Russell Vought are not only breaking the law, but they are also once again endangering the health and safety of Americans.” She said Americans expect taxpayer dollars to be put to research “that has the best chance at delivering a breakthrough or cure for a disease, not wielded like a cudgel to punish the president’s perceived enemies and score political points.”

On social media, OMB Director Russell Vought targeted criticism from non-profits as a “freakout by those on the left,” according to the Guardian. The White House “fraud taskforce” said the rule would ensure “American taxpayers will no longer be forced to fund woke NGOs with partisan agendas.” The rule is supported by the Heritage Foundation, the Washington, D.C., think tank that authored Project 2025.

Gostin said a lawsuit would likely need a grant denial to establish standing, and he expects state attorneys general, institutions and possibly individual plaintiffs to initiate suits. “It’s not a 100% slam-dunk, although I do think there will be some trial judges, district court judges who will enjoin it,” Gostin said. “But as it goes though highly conservative courts of appeal and the conservative supreme court, the outcome is less certain.”

Krieger said groups studying “the farthest reaches of the galaxy to the deepest depths of the sea to everything in between, including those of us who wander around predominantly on plants,” have come together to oppose the rule. “That’s because, yes, we have experienced censorship. We have experience with blunt use of power to put forward the ideological agenda,” she said.