1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

As your constituent, I urge you to oppose the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) proposed changes to the Federal Financial Assistance Rule. These revisions threaten American innovation by replacing objective, expert peer review with political oversight. The proposed rule compromises our nation's scientific leadership through several critical changes: • Political Vetoes: Senior political appointees would gain veto power over individual scientific research grants. • Ending True Peer Review: Decades of merit-based peer review at agencies like the NIH and NSF would become strictly advisory. • Defunding Publications: Journal publication costs and open-access fees would become unallowable, blocking public access to taxpayer-funded discoveries. • Mid-Award Terminations: Active, multi-year research projects could be canceled arbitrarily without any finding of scientific misconduct. • Micro-Managing Researchers: Routine activities, such as attending professional conferences, would require case-by-case political pre-approval. American global leadership relies on objective, evidence-based inquiry. Subjecting scientific discovery to shifting political agendas paralyzes innovation and wastes taxpayer resources. Please protect the integrity of American science by demanding that OMB withdraw these destructive provisions before the July 13, 2026, comment deadline.