Trump’s OMB rule won’t destroy American science. It will rescue taxpayer-funded research

Washington’s grant-industrial complex has discovered a new theory: Once Congress appropriates money, unelected reviewers and recipients, and not executive officials accountable for administering the law, should control where it goes.This panic gets the rule backward. At its core, OMB’s proposal to Part 200 is simple: make federal grants more accountable to taxpayers by tightening oversight, rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, protecting national interests, and ensuring public money advances the purposes Congress actually authorized. Washington distributes more than $1 trillion annually through a sprawling system insulated from public scrutiny, marked by weaknesses in program design and award selection through post-award oversight. OMB’s proposal is the most serious effort in a generation to restore lawful stewardship, transparency, and accountability to taxpayers.The senators claim OMB lacks authority and is usurping Congress’s power of the purse. But there are a series of statutes in Title 31 of the United States Code, along with several laws that give OMB governmentwide financial-management policies for promoting consistent, efficient use of federal grants.Congress creates programs, sets funding, and determines eligibility. But when it gives an agency discretion to choose among eligible projects, that discretion does not belong to a private peer-review panel or permanent bureaucracy.The rule does not let the president cancel “any grant at any time for any reason and without any notice.” Discretionary termination applies only to the extent permitted by law, must be clearly included in award terms, and generally excludes statutory entitlements such as formula, block, and disaster-recovery grants. Agencies must provide notice and an explanation. The rule will leave the discretionary decisions to agency officials who are politically accountable to the American people — not to unelected bureaucrats.The attack on OMB’s science reforms is misplaced. The proposal expressly preserves peer review. Scientists may continue evaluating methodology, technical merit, and research potential. Their recommendations remain an important part of the decision-making process, but the final decision rests with the executive officials responsible for administering taxpayer dollars. That is not anti-science. Peer reviewers can assess scientific quality, but they cannot determine whether a project complies with the law, fulfills the program Congress authorized, duplicates existing work, presents national-security concerns, or advances the agency’s lawful priorities. Expertise should inform those decisions but not replace accountability to the American taxpayer.The U.S. Office of Personnel Management building in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) Critics confuse scientific research with political advocacy. OMB’s rule does not prohibit legitimate research into health disparities or population outcomes. It ensures that federal grants remain tied to the lawful purposes Congress authorized and not to unlawful discrimination, racial preferences, or ideological activism masquerading as science. OMB calls for rigorous, reproducible scholarship, measurable benchmarks, broader participation, and a portfolio combining near-term results with long-term breakthroughs. That is a stronger innovation model than routing money to the same institutions because that’s how it’s always been done. It is time to cut off the spending autopilot.The Washington Post repeats an advocacy group’s unsupported claim that 49% of federally funded clinical trials would become ineligible under the rule, but that assertion ignores what the proposal actually says. OMB does not close America to international science. The rule adopts a domestic-first framework for research awards while expressly allowing international collaborations when they provide unique expertise and permits foreign entities to participate as subrecipients or contractors under U.S.-led awards. The rule requires greater scrutiny of taxpayer dollars flowing to institutions affiliated with covered foreign adversaries. A grant system incapable of examining whether federal funds are reaching entities such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology is not advancing science but is abandoning the government’s responsibility to safeguard taxpayer resources and the national interest.THE DELPHI BAILOUT CONGRESS SHOULDN’T PAYThe senators’ claim that OMB weakens financial oversight is perhaps the strangest charge of all. They object that the proposal no longer directs every grant recipient to follow evolving Government Accountability Office or Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission frameworks. But neither GAO guidance nor COSO standards are binding regulations for recipients of federal grants. Congress charged OMB and not a legislative branch agency or private organization with establishing uniform governmentwide grant requirements. The GAO, a legislative branch agency, cannot control, bind, or litigate an executive branch agency. The rule still allows recipients to maintain effective internal controls while recognizing GAO and COSO are useful references only and not binding law. At the same time, OMB strengthens oversight by improving accountability, expanding verification, and better protecting taxpayer dollars from waste, fraud, and abuse.Federal grants are not private endowments. Peer review is not a blank check. And the administrative state is not a fourth branch of government. OMB’s proposal restores the constitutional chain of accountability by ensuring that taxpayer dollars are spent for the purposes Congress authorized by officials the American people can hold accountable. That’s not politics or a war on science. That’s how representative government is supposed to work. OMB should finalize the rule.Benjamin M. Osborne serves as a legal fellow at the Center for Renewing America.