Dear Director Vought:

As academics and health experts who have spent careers advancing evidence-based science, we write to express our strong opposition to the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed rule that grants political appointees sweeping authority over federal grant-making decisions. This proposal would allow political appointees to override merit review, interfere with federal research funding, and deny support to research that does not conform to the Trump administration’s priorities. This is a direct attack on academic freedom, scientific integrity, and evidence-based decision-making across the federal government.

We are especially concerned that this rule would threaten the First Amendment, academic freedom, and the scientific process. For example, researchers who produce findings that do not align with the Trump administration’s priorities could be prohibited from sharing that evidence with the public.

For decades, federal research funding has relied on scientific merit, transparency, independent peer review, and the judgment of subject matter experts. This system has helped produce life-saving advances in public health, medicine, environmental protection, disaster preparedness, clean energy, and disease prevention. The proposed rule would undermine that foundation by making expert review merely advisory and allowing political appointees to decide which projects receive funding based on ideology rather than scientific evidence.

Federal research funding helped make the United States a global leader in science. Since 1945, science and technology have driven 85% of U.S. economic growth. Each dollar funded by NIH and other government entities generates $2.46 in economic activity. Federal funding has supported breakthroughs, including the Human Genome Project, CRISPR, cancer immunotherapies, hepatitis C treatments, therapies for Ebola, and vaccines for HPV, meningitis, shingles, COVID-19, malaria, and RSV. Politicizing the grant process threatens the very system that saves lives, creates jobs, strengthens national security, and keeps the United States at the forefront of innovation.

Under this rule, entire fields of research, including climate science, vaccine safety, LGBTQ+ health, environmental justice, and more, could be denied, restricted, or canceled based on political loyalty or disagreement with the Trump administration’s priorities. This would come at the expense of science, public health and safety, communities across the country, and future generations.

As stewards of the scientific enterprise, we have a responsibility to oppose this attempt to supplant scientific merit and subject-matter expertise with partisan, ideologically based scientific suppression. This proposed rule is an unjustified and dangerous escalation of the Trump administration’s attacks on science and evidence-based decision-making. We urge OMB to abandon this proposal and preserve a federal grant-making process rooted in academic freedom and scientific integrity.

Sincerely,