The public comment period on the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance (Docket OMB-2026-0034) closed on July 13. Almost half a million comments were filed, and those that have been publicly posted are overwhelmingly opposed. The response from the scientific community was substantial, and AIBS thanks everyone who submitted comments, shared analysis, or urged colleagues to act.
That was an important step. It was not the last one.
President Trump signed a continuing resolution on September 2 that keeps the government funded through December 11 and includes a provision blocking OMB from issuing or finalizing the proposed grants rule during that period. AIBS thanks the members of Congress who worked to include this provision and those who supported its passage.
But this is only a temporary reprieve. AIBS urges the scientific community to continue engaging with your members of Congress and ask them to build on this progress by pursuing a more permanent solution to the concerns raised by the proposed rule. Constituents should also urge Congress to use its oversight authority to ensure that individual federal agencies do not preemptively implement provisions of the proposed guidance before its finalized. For example, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education have proposed changes to policies governing federal financial assistance that, in some respects, align with provisions of the proposed OMB rule.
WHY CONGRESS, AND WHY NOW
This represents a major overhaul of the rules governing every federal grant. It would let senior political appointees override independent peer reviewers, allow agencies to terminate active awards when priorities shift, and restrict the conferences, memberships, and publications through which research reaches the public. OMB concedes it could not quantify what any of this would cost.
Congress authorized these programs and appropriates the funds; this rule shifts control over how that money is spent toward the executive branch and away from the merit-based review Congress has long supported.
HOW TO TAKE ACTION
- Get up to speed. Spend a few minutes with the AIBS resource page on the proposed rule. It includes AIBS’s formal comments to OMB, a number of helpful summaries of what the rule would change, external analyses, and a shareable one-pager designed to be emailed to a congressional office or printed and handed to a staffer you meet with.
- Call your members of Congress. Look them up and call the office using the phone script in the provided toolkit. If you reach voicemail, leave the message — it still gets logged.
- Email. Use our editable template letter to send a message to your Representative and both Senators. Personalize the letter — a specific example from your lab, museum, field station, or department is worth more than any argument we can supply. And if you submitted comments to OMB, you can share those with their offices too.
- Meet in district. Request a meeting with district staff, or attend a town hall and ask about the rule directly. Print the AIBS one-pager and leave it behind. If you can host a visit to your institution, offer it — seeing federally funded research firsthand is persuasive in a way that email is not.
THE TOOLKIT
- Template letter to send via email — editable, to personalize with your own examples
- Phone script — what to say, what to ask, and what to do when you get voicemail
- AIBS one-pager — attach to an email, or print for meetings
This rule would outlast the administration that wrote it. The mechanisms it would put in place could be used by any administration to reshape the nation’s research enterprise for reasons that have nothing to do with scientific merit. That is worth a few minutes of your time.