Demand OMB Release Appropriated Science Funds and Hold Vought Accountable

I am writing to demand immediate congressional action to force the Office of Management and Budget to release science funding that Congress has already appropriated. While Congress rejected the Trump administration's proposed 30% cuts to federal research and development in favor of a 4% reduction for fiscal year 2026, OMB Director Russel Vought has weaponized bureaucratic mechanisms to achieve those cuts anyway through invisible impoundment that violates the Impoundment Control Act. The National Institutes of Health, the world's largest public funder of biomedical research, has awarded just 30% of its usual volume of new research grants this fiscal year. The National Science Foundation, responsible for a quarter of all federally supported basic research, saw grant awards plummet by approximately 25% before receiving authorization to spend in mid-February. OMB has placed unprecedented restrictions on ten specific science programs, including critical Earth-science satellites and missions to Venus, halting them until agencies justify their existence to political appointees. This bureaucratic asphyxiation is causing a brain drain crisis. More than 10,000 Ph.D.-trained STEM and health experts left the federal government in 2025, with departures outpacing hiring by 11 to 1. We have lost more than 106,000 years of federal service experience. Our best scientists are leaving for other countries because they cannot conduct research without funding. Congress controls appropriations, but Vought has modified the Budget Bible, Circular A-11, to bypass your legislative intent. This is not just a procedural violation. It is undermining American scientific leadership, threatening public health research, and forcing critical laboratories to close. I urge you to take immediate action to compel OMB to release all appropriated science funds, hold Russel Vought accountable for violating the Impoundment Control Act, and restore congressional authority over the budget. More than a quarter of our workforce is employed in STEM fields. We cannot afford to lose this generation of scientific talent and research capacity.