Protect Merit-Based Science from Trump Apparatchiks (OMB-2026-0034)

I’m writing to urge your close attention to OMB-2026-0034, “Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance.” The proposal would expand political control over more than $1 trillion in annual federal grants by requiring political appointees to approve awards based on alignment with the President’s policy priorities, and by imposing broad constraints on permissible activities and topics for grant recipients—including researchers. My concern is not simply that federal grantmaking would favor certain priorities, but that the rule would function as an administrative mechanism for steering scientific agendas through compliance pressure. In effect, it risks turning research into a matter of political orthodoxy rather than technical merit—an approach reminiscent of how ideological enforcement shaped Soviet biology during the Lysenko affair, where the state narrowed “legitimate” science and compelled conformity through institutional gatekeeping and serious consequences for dissent. The U.S. system already has a better model: the current peer-review process for federally funded research. Peer review is imperfect, but it is vastly preferable to political control because it is designed to evaluate proposals based on scientific merit and evidence rather than ideological alignment. This OMB rule threatens to displace that merit-based evaluation with discretionary standards that can change with politics. Because Congress funds federal research grants through statute and appropriations, I’m concerned this OMB rule may represent administrative overreach—imposing substantive conditions and/or award constraints beyond what Congress authorized. If statutory limits are blurred or replaced by OMB-defined eligibility standards, then Congress’s funding intent could be undermined through regulation rather than through the deliberative legislative process. I respectfully ask your office to request that OMB clarify its statutory authority for the provisions affecting grant requirements and award selection for federally funded research. I also urge you to consider active oversight—such as a formal letter and/or a hearing—to ensure grant administration remains faithful to Congress’s funding intent. Finally, please consider introducing or endorsing legislation that limits OMB’s ability to impose substantive conditions on grant awards that are not authorized by Congress. Thank you for your attention to this matter.