Block OMB's Power Grab Over Federal Research Grants

Use your oversight authority to stop OMB's proposed rewrite of federal research grant rules (Docket OMB-2026-0034) before it takes effect October 1, 2026. This rule hands the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and political appointees personal sign-off power over every discretionary research grant in the country while explicitly demoting expert scientific peer review to "advisory only." That is not a policy adjustment. It is a political takeover of a system Congress deliberately insulated from political interference. Congress created independent scientific agencies and peer review commissions for exactly this reason: science requires domain expertise, not ideological alignment. Under §200.340, active grants could be canceled mid-study simply because they no longer match "agency priorities" — no misconduct, no poor performance required. For multi-year longitudinal studies like ME/CFS and Long COVID research, that provision alone could wipe out years of irreplaceable data. The rule also eliminates the small subawards that specialized labs rely on and bars journal publication fees as allowable costs, quietly strangling the research pipeline. Stand up for the legislation Congress passed to keep science independent. Demand OMB withdraw the most harmful provisions and make clear that merit-based peer review is not negotiable. Science isn't partisan. The people deciding what research moves forward should be experts, not political appointees with no scientific credentials.